^^:::M^M^m 


J  9SZHd^  WC?E  VGV'7 


m 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 

GIFT  OF 


Dr.  Jeffrey  B.  Russell, 
UCR 


^C2^_^  V7^ 


PASSAGES     FROM 


THE    PROSE   WRITINGS 


OF 


MATTHEW    ARNOLD 


NEW  YORK 

MACMILLAN  AND  CO., 

18S0 


CONTENTS. 


I.    LITER  A  TURK. 


PAGB 

PAGB 

The  Modern  Spirit 

3 

Dante,  Shakspeare,  Goethe    . 

37 

Range  of  Modern  Criticism  . 

4 

Goethe's  Naturalistn 

38 

Philistinism 

4 

Goethe's  Greatness . 

39 

English  Literary  Opinion      . 

8 

Goethe's  Foundation 

40 

English  Eccentricity 

8 

Our  i8cx)-i830 

42 

Literary  Conscience 

lO 

Prodigality  of  Nature  . 

44 

Distinction    .... 

II 

Symbolism  in  Poetry 

45 

Curiosity       .... 

II 

Goethe's  Corporatism 

46 

Systematic  Judgments  . 

12 

Simplicity  and  '  Simplesse  '  . 

47 

The    yourneyman-  Work    of 

Hymns,  English  and  German 

48 

Literature. 

14 

Hymns  Again 

49 

The  Note  of  Provinciality 

15 

Latin  Hymns  and  the  '  Imi- 

An English  Academy    . 

i6 

tation  '        .         .         .         . 

SO 

The  Same      .... 

17 

German  Style 

51 

Creative  Epochs     . 

19 

Blending  of  Temperaments    . 

52 

Genius  of  Homer  . 

20 

Our  English  Mixture   . 

53 

Homer  and  the  Bible     . 

20 

English  Prose  and  Poetry 

54 

Homer  and  the  Elizabethans . 

21 

Burke 

58 

Homer,  Spenser,  and  Keats  . 

22 

Coleridge       .... 

60 

Homer  and  Scott  . 

22 

youbert  and  yeffrey 

61 

Homer  and  the  Balladists 

23 

Middle-class  Macau layese 

65 

Key-note  to  the  Iliad 

26 

Macaulay  s  Place  in  Civilisa- 

Exhilaration of  Hebrew  Pro- 

tion   ..... 

66' 

phecy  ..... 

26 

George  Sand's  Novels     . 

68 

The  Celtic  Genius 

27 

George  Sand .... 

69 

Natural  Magic 

31 

The  Oxford  Movement  . 

71 

How  Poetry  Interprets  . 

32 

Oxford 

74 

Shakspeare     .... 

33 

A  Chair  of  Celtic  at  Oxford . 

75 

Milton  s  Power  of  Style 

34 

Arthur  Hugh  Clough    . 

n 

VI 


Contents. 


II.     POLITICS  AND   SOCIETY. 


The  Young  Lions  . 
The  British  Constitution 
Tlie  Licensed  Victuallers 
Barbarians,   Fliilstines,   Po 

pulace 
America 

A  inerica  and  France  . 
T-.e  Eiii^lish  Gentleman 
The  Alderman-Colonel . 
The  Rough    . 

Pequisites  for  Civilisation 
The  Pilgrim  Fathers     . 
The  I'uritan    'Type 
Puritanism  and  Liberty 
Mr.  Smith    . 
Our  Coal 
Free  Trade   . 
Siocetness  and  Light 
Athenian  Culture 
Fire  and  Strength 
Anti-Politics 
The  Spotted  Dog    . 
Young  Liberals 
I/umahc  Individuals     . 
The  Greatest  Happiness  of  the 

Greatest  Number 
The  .Social  Idea     . 
Culture 

Letters  and  the  Masses  . 
Priesthoods    and    Aristocra 

cies    .... 
<  iood  of  A  rtstocracy 
Weak  Side  of  Aristocracy 
/ r-.'tociaciei    in    Ep  chs    of 

F..X pans  ion 


84 
89 
90 
90 

91 
92 

94 
94 
96 

97 
98 

99 
100 

lOI 
lOI 

103 
104 
107 
108 
109 

I  r  I 
11 1 

"3 
114 

114 

115 
117 

119 


PAGR 

Democratic  Equality     .  .121 

/''/  uits  of  Inequality       .  .    124 

Arminiusou  the  Middle-Class 

Era 125 

Our     Middle-Class    Educa- 
tion   .....   12^ 
Paris  and  London  .         .   128 

Demands  on  Life  .  .  .  129 
French  Revolution         .  .    T30 

England  and  the  Celts  .  .131 
England  and  Ireland  .  .  132 
Middle-Class  Foreign  Policy  .  135 
The    Young  Man   from    the 

Country     .         .         .         .137 
The  Great  War  ~,oith  France  138 
Loids    Grenville  and    Gran- 
ville .....    140 
The  British   Philistine   and 

Continental  Govern  ments  141 
The  Black  Sea  Question  Il- 
lustrated .  .  .  .146 
A  Germati  Lesson  .  .  .150 
Reasons  for  Nope  .  .  -151 
Ferment  .  .  .  .153 
'  Is  this  yerusalemf  .  .  154 
The  True  ferusalcm     .  .   155 

Good  of  Philistinism      .  .   157 

A   Word  to  Ireland        .  .   158 

Revolution  by  Due  Course  of 

Law  .....  159 
State  Action  .  .  .  .160 
What  is  the  State  f  .  .  161 
The  Same  ....  164 
State-//.  Ip  not  Degrading  .  164 
Anti-anarchy        .         .         .   165 


Co7tten  ts. 


vu 


///.     PHILOSOPHY  AND   RELIGION. 


PAGE 

H:braisin  and  Hellenism       .   169 
Reuascence  and  Reformation   173 


Hellenism      .         .         .         . 

174 

Hebrais7n       .          .         .         . 

174 

Hebraisin  of  the  English 

177 

1  he  Puritans  and  Religion  . 

179 

Future  of  Hebraism 

jSo 

The     Liberals    and     Chris- 

tianity      .         .         .         . 

181 

Catholicism  .         .         .         . 

181 

Catholicism  to  Catholics 

184 

True  Strength  of  Catholicism 

185 

The  Need  for  Beauty     . 

187 

Milton  and  Eliza  Cook  . 

188 

Rationale  of  Public  Ceremo- 

nial .         .         .         .         . 

189 

Burials  Bill. 

191 

Bui-ials  Rubric     . 

192 

National  Churches 

194 

Church  and  Sect   . 

19s 

Pugilistic  Dissent 

T97 

Dissidence  of  Dissent     . 

199 

Comprehension 

200 

What  is  the  Church  ?    . 

201 

The  Church  and  Social  Pro 

gress  .... 

•   203 

The  Kingdom  of  God    . 

•   205 

True  Strength  of  the  Church 

of  England 

.   206 

'  Epieikeia '  . 

.   207 

The  Religious  Situation 

.   208 

The  Dissenters  and  the  Crisi 

s  211 

Ritualism 

.  212 

Simpletons  and  Savages 

•  213 

False  Hebraisers    . 

.  214 

Messrs.  Moody  and  Sankey 

■  215 

Professor  Clifford  . 

.  216 

Philosophical  Radicals  , 

.  218 

PAOE 
.  219 
.  221 
.  222 
.    224 


A  Historical  Parallel   . 
Christianity  will  Survive 
Religious  Reconstruction 
Interregnum  .... 
Object    of    '  Literatu7-e     and 
Dogma '      .  .  .  . 

The    Reproach   of   Presu>np- 
tion    ..... 
Intellectual  Seriousn'SS 
Weak  Side  of  Popular  Chris- 
tianity       .... 
Popular  Science  of  Religion  . 
Missions        .... 
Miracles  Coming  In 
Miracles  Going  Out 
'  Offendiculum'  of  Scrupulous- 
ness   ..... 
yesus    Christ    used  Pop-ular 
Language  .... 
Avoid  Violent  Revolutio)i 
The  Scientific  Basis 
The  Stream  of  Te?idcncy 
The  '  Not  Ourselves ' 
Conduct       T//ree-fu/rths      of 

Life 

Morality    Touched  by   Emo- 
tion   ..... 
Natural' and  Revealed  Reli 

gion  .... 
The  Witness  of  Israel  . 
Greece  and  Israel . 
The  Decalogue  by  Evolution 
Persistency  of  Israel' s  Faith 
'  Cogitavi  Vias  Meas '  . 
'  Aberglaube' 
What  yesus  Christ  Effected  .  264 
'  Epieikeia  '  Again  .  .  265 
Moral  Therapiutics       ,         .  266 


227 

227 

228 
230 
231 
232 
234 


237 
240 
242 

243 
244 

245 
247 

248 
249 
252 

253 

25S 

260 
262 


Vlll 


Contents. 


PACiE 

The  New  Testament  Presen- 

tation of  Jesus  Christ 

268 

Jtsi/s  Christ  and  Socrates     . 

269 

The  Marvellous    Work  and 

Wonder     .... 

270 

The  Spirit  of  Truth      . 

272 

St.  Paul  and  the  'Not  Our- 

selves '        .         .         .         . 

274 

The  Pauline  '  Necrosis ' 

276 

Predestination 

277 

.itonement     .... 

278 

John   Wesley 

280 

St.  Paul  and  the  Puritans    . 

280 

'  San  Paolo  Fuori  le  Mura '. 

281 

The  Bridge  which  Carries  us 

Over 

284 

Catholicism   and  Protestant- 

ism   ..... 

285 

Criticism  within  the  Church 

288 

'  Securui  Judical' 

292 

Morality  and  Religion  . 

292 

Christianity  and  the  Anto- 

c-ncs          .... 

294 

PAGE 

Marcus  Aurelius  .         .         .  297 
Marcus  Aurelius  and  Chris- 
tianity      ....  302 
The  Imams   .         .         .         .303 
Spinoza  .         .         •         ■  3>os 

Turgot  and  Butler  .  .  307 
Butler's  Psychology  .  .  309 
Butlers       Argument     from 

Analogy     ....  31^ 
Butler's  Appeal  to  our  Ignor- 
ance   313 

Result  of  the  '  Analogy'  .  2>^\ 
The  '  Analogy  '  To-day  .  315 

Greatness  of  Butler  .  .316 
Bishop  Wilson's  'Maxims'  .  317 
The  Neia  Religious  Prospect .  320 
Reproach    of    a    Sublimated 

Christianity  .  .  .  323 
The  True  Jerusalem  .  .  325 
Israel  and  his  Rroelation  .  327 
Grandeur  of  Christianity  .  329 
Immortality .         ,        .         .  330 


I. 

LITERATURE. 


B 


THE  MODERN  SPIRIT. 

Modern  times  find  themselves  with  an  immense  system 
of    institutions,    estabHshed    facts,    accredited    dogmas, 
customs,  rules,  which  have  come  to  them  from  times  not 
modern.     In  this  system  their  life  has  to  be  carried  for- 
ward ;  yet  they  have  a  sense  that  this  system  is  not  of 
their   own   creation,  that   it  by  no   means   corresponds 
exactly  with  the  wants  of  •their  actual  life,  that,  for  them, 
it  is  customary,  not  rational.      The  awakening  of  this 
sense   is    the   awakening   of  the   modern   spirit.      The 
modern   spirit   is   now   awake   almost   everywhere  ;  the 
sense  of  want  of  correspondence  between  the  forms  of 
modern  Europe  and  its  spirit,  between  the  new  wine  of 
the  eighteenth  and    nineteenth  centuries,   and   the  old 
bottles  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  or  even  of 
the   sixteenth   and   seventeenth,  almost  every  one  now 
perceives  ;  it  is  no  longer  dangerous  to  affirm  that  this 
want  of  correspondence  exists  ;    people    are  even    be- 
ginning to  be  shy  of  denying  it.     To  remove  this  want 
of    correspondence    is    beginning    to    be    the    settled 
endeavour  of  most  persons  of  good  sense.     Dissolvents 
of  the  old   European   system   of  dominant   ideas   and 

B  2 


Literature. 


facts  we  must  all  be,  all  of  us  who  have  any  power  of 
working  ;  what  we  have  to  study  is  that  we  may  not  be 
acrid  dissolvents  of  it — Essays  in  Criticism, 

RANGE   OF  MODERN  CRITICISM. 

The  criticism  which,  throughout  Europe,  is  at  the  pre- 
sent day  meant,  when  so  much  stress  is  laid  on  the 
importance  of  criticism  and  the  critical  spirit, — is  a  cri- 
ticism which  regards  Europe  as  being,  for  intellectual 
and  spiritual  purposes,  one  great  confederation,  bound  to 
a  joint  action  and  working  to  a  common  result  ;  and 
whose  members  have,  for  their  common  outfit,  a  know- 
ledge of  Greek,  Roman,  and  Eastern  antiquity,  and  of 
one  another.  Special,  local,  and  temporary  advantages 
being  put  out  of  account,  that  modern  nation  will  in  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual  sphere  make  most  i)rogress, 
which  most  thoroughly  carries  out  this  programme. 
And  what  is  that  but  saying  that  we  too,  all  of  us,  as 
individuals,  the  more  thoroughly  we  carry  it  out,  shall 
make  the  more  progress  ? — Essays  ifi  Criticism. 

PHILISTINISM. 

Philistinism  ! — we  have  not  the  expression  in  English. 
Perhaps  we  have  not  the  word  because  we  have  so  much 
of  the  thing.  At  Soli,  I  imagine,  they  did  not  talk  of 
solecisms  ;  and  here,  at  the  very  head-quarters  of  Goliath, 
nobody  talks  of  Philistinism.     The  French  have  adopted 


Philistinism. 


the  term  epicier  (grocer),  to  designate  the  sort  of  being 
whom  the  Germans  designate  by  the  term  Philistine  ;  but 
the  French  term, — besides  that  it  casts  a  slur  upon  a 
respectable  class,  composed  of  living  and  susceptible 
members,  while  the  original  Philistines  are  dead  and 
buried  long  ago, — is  really,  I  think,  in  itself  much  less 
apt  and  expressive  than  the  German  term.  Efforts  have 
been  made  to  obtain  in  English  some  term  equivalent  to 
Philister  or  epicier  ;  Mr.  Carlyle  has  made  several  such 
efforts:  'respectability  with  its  thousand  gigs,'  he  says  ; 
— well,  the  occupant  of  every  one  of  these  gigs  is,  Mr. 
Carlyle  means,  a  Philistine.  However,  the  word  respect- 
able is  far  too  valuable  a  word  to  be  thus  perverted  from 
its  proper  meaning  ;  if  the  English  are  ever  to  have  a 
word  for  the  thing  we  are  speaking  of,^ — and  so  pro- 
digious are  the  changes  which  the  modern  spirit  is  intro- 
ducing, that  even  we  English  shall  perhaps  one  day  come 
to  want  such  a  word, — I  think  we  had  much  better  take 
the  term  Philistine  itself. 

Philistine  must  have  originally  meant,  in  the  mind 
of  those  who  invented  the  nickname,  a  strong,  dogged, 
unenlightened  opponent  of  the  chosen  people,  of  the 
children  of  the  light.  The  party  of  change^  the  would-be 
remodellers  of  the  old  traditional  European  order,  the 
invokers  of  reason  against  custom,  the  representatives  of 
the  modern  spirit  in  every  sphere  where  it  is  applicable, 
regarded   themselves,    with    the   robust    self-confidence 


Literature. 


natural  to  reformers,  as  a  chosen  people,  as  children  of 
the  light.  They  regarded  their  adversaries  as  humdrum 
people,  slaves  to  routine,  enemies  to  light ;  stupid  and 
oppressive,  but  at  the  same  time  very  strong.  This 
explains  the  love  which  Heine,  that  Paladin  of  the 
modern  spirit,  has  for  France  ;  it  explains  the  preference 
which  he  gives  to  France  over  Germany  :  '  the  French,' 
he  says,  '  are  the  chosen  people  of  the  new  religion,  its 
first  gospels  and  dogmas  have  been  drawn  up  in  their 
language  ;  Paris  is  the  new  Jerusalem,  and  the  Rhine  is 
the  Jordan  which  divides  the  consecrated  land  of  freedom 
from  the  land  of  the  Philistines.'  He  means  that  the 
French,  as  a  people,  have  shown  more  accessibility  to 
ideas  than  any  other  people  ;  that  prescription  and 
routine  have  had  less  hold  upon  them  than  upon  any 
other  people  ;  that  they  have  shown  most  readiness  to 
move  and  to  alter  at  the  bidding  (real  or  supposed)  of 
reason.  This  explains,  too,  the  detestation  which  Heine 
had  for  the  English  :  '  I  might  settle  in  England,'  he 
says,  in  his  exile,  '  if  it  were  not  that  I  should  find  there 
two  things,  coal-smoke  and  Englishmen  ;  I  cannot  abide 
either.'  What  he  hated  in  the  English  was  the  'acht- 
brittische  Beschriinktheit,'  as  he  calls  it, — the  geftuine 
British  narrowness.  In  truth,  the  English,  jirofoundly 
as  they  have  modified  the  old  Middle-Age  order,  great 
as  is  the  liberty  which  they  have  secured  for  themselves, 
have  in  all  their  changes  proceeded,  to  use  a  familiar 


Philistinism. 


expression,  by  the  rule  of  thumb  ;  what  was  intolerably 
inconvenient  to  them  they  have  suppressed,  and  as  they 
have  suppressed  it,  not  because  it  was  irrational,  but 
because  it  was  practically  inconvenient,  they  have  seldom 
in  suppressing  it  appealed  to  reason,  but  always,  if 
possible,  to  some  precedent,  or  form,  or  letter,  which 
served  as  a  convenient  instrument  for  their  purpose,  and 
which  saved  them  from  the  necessity  of  recurring  to 
general  principles.  They  have  thus  become,  in  a  certain 
sense,  of  all  people  the  most  inaccessible  to  ideas  and 
the  most  impatient  of  them  ;  inaccessible  to  them,  be- 
cause of  their  want  of  familiarity  with  them  ;  and  im- 
patient of  them,  because  they  have  got  on  so  well  without 
them,  that  they  despise  those  who,  not  having  got  on  as 
well  as  themselves,  still  make  a  fuss  for  what  they  them- 
selves have  done  so  well  without.  But  there  has  certainly 
followed  from  hence,  in  this  country,  somewhat  of  a 
general  depression  of  pure  intelligence  :  Philistia  has 
come  to  be  thought  by  us  the  true  Land  of  Promise,  and 
it  is  anything  but  that  ;  the  born  lover  of  ideas,  the  born 
hater  of  commonplaces,  must  feel  in  this  country,  that 
the  sky  over  his  head  is  of  brass  and  iron. — Essays  in 
Criticism. 


Litei'ahire. 


ENGLISH  LITERARY  OPINION. 

I  THINK  that  in  England,  partly  from  the  want  of  an 
Academy,  partly  from  a  national  habit  of  intellect  to 
which  that  want  of  an  Academy  is  itself  due,  there  exists 
too  little  of  what  I  may  call  a  public  force  of  correct 
literary  opinion,  possessing  within  certain  limits  a  clear 
sense  of  what  is  right  and  wrong,  sound  and  unsound, 
and  sharply  recalling  men  of  ability  and  learning  from 
any  flagrant  misdirection  of  these  their  advantages.  I 
think,  even,  that  in  our  country  a  powerful  misdirection 
of  this  kind  is  often  more  likely  to  subjugate  and  pervert 
opinion,  than  to  be  checked  and  corrected  by  it.  Hence 
a  chaos  of  false  tendencies,  wasted  efforts,  impotent  con- 
clusions, works  which  ought  never  to  have  been  under- 
taken. Anyone  who  can  introduce  a  little  order  into  this 
chaos  by  establishing  in  any  quarter  a  single  sound  rule  of 
criticism,  a  single  rule  which  clearly  marks  what  is  right 
as  right,  and  what  is  wrong  as  wrong,  does  a  good  deed  j 
and  his  deed  is  so  much  the  better  the  greater  force  he 
counteracts  of  learning  and  ability  applied  to  thicken  the 
chaos. — Last  Words  on  Translating  Homer. 

ENGLISH  ECCENTRICITY. 

Thk  eccentricity,  the  arbitrariness,  of  which  Professor 
Francis  Newman's  conception  of  Homer  offers  so  signal 
an  example,  arc  not  a  peculiar  failing  of  Mr.  Newman's 


English  hcceidi'icity. 


own  ;  in  varying  degrees,  they  are  the  great  defect  of 
English  intellect,  the  great  blemish  of  English  literature. 
Our  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  literature  of 
the  school  of  Dryden,  Addison,  Pope,  Johnson,  is  a  long 
reaction  against  this  eccentricity,  this  arbitrariness  :  that 
reaction  perished  by  its  own  faults,  and  its  enemies  are 
left  once  more  masters  of  the  field.  Our  present  litera- 
ture, which  is  very  far,  certainly,  from  having  the  spirit 
and  power  of  Elizabethan  genius,  yet  has  in  its  own  way 
these  faults,  eccentricity  and  arbitrariness,  quite  as  much 
as  the  Elizabethan  literature  ever  had.  They  are  the 
cause,  that  while  upon  none,  perhaps,  of  the  modern 
literatures  has  so  great  a  sum  of  force  been  expended  as 
upon  the  English  literature,  at  the  present  hour  this 
literature,  regarded  not  as  an  object  of  mere  literary 
interest  but  as  a  living  intellectual  instrument,  ranks  only 
third  in  European  effect  and  importance  among  the 
literatures  of  Europe  ;  it  ranks  after  the  literatures  of 
France  and  Germany.  Of  these  two  literatures,  as  of 
the  intellect  of  Europe  in  general,  the  main  effort,  for 
now  many  years,  has  been  a  critical  effort ;  the  endeavour, 
in  all  branches  of  knowledge — theology,  philosophy, 
history,  art,  science — to  see  the  object  as  in  itself  it  really 
is.  But,  owing  to  the  presence  in  English  literature  of 
this  eccentric  and  arbitrary  spirit,  owing  to  the  strong 
tendency  of  English  writers  to  bring  to  the  consideration 
of  their  object  some  individual  fancy,  almost  the  last 


lo  Literattire. 


thing  for  which  one  would  come  to  English  literature  is 
just  that  very  thing  which  now  Europe  most  desires  : 
criticism. — Lectures  on  Translating  Homer. 

LITERARY  CONSCIENCE. 

'In  France,'  says  M.  Sainte-Beuve,  'the  first  considera- 
tion for  us  is  not  whether  we  are  amused  and  pleased  by 
a  work  of  art  or  mind,  nor  is  it  whether  we  are  touched 
by  it.  What  we  seek  above  all  to  learn  is,  whether  we 
were  right  in  being  amused  with  it,  and  in  applauding  it, 
and  in  being  moved  by  it. '  Those  are  very  remarkable 
words,  and  they  are,  I  believe,  in  the  main  quite  true. 
A  Frenchman  has,  to  a  considerable  degree,  what  one 
may  call  a  conscience  in  intellectual  matters  ;  he  has  an 
active  belief  that  there  is  a  right  and  a  wrong  in  them, 
that  he  is  bound  to  honour  and  obey  the  right,  that  he  is 
disgraced  by  cleaving  to  the  wrong.  All  the  world  has,  or 
professes  to  have,  this  conscience  in  moral  matters.  The 
word  conscience  has  become  almost  confined,  in  popular 
use,  to  the  moral  sphere,  because  this  lively  susceptibility 
of  feeling  is,  in  the  moral  sphere,  so  far  more  common 
than  in  the  intellectual  sphere.  The  livelier,  in  the  moral 
sphere,  this  susceptibility  is,  the  greater  becomes  a  man's 
readiness  to  admit  a  high  standard  of  action,  an  ideal 
authoritatively  correcting  his  everyday  moral  habits  ; 
here,  such  willing  admission  of  authority  is  due  to 
sensitiveness  of  conscience.     And  a  Uke  deference  to  a 


Literary  Conscience.  1 1 

standard  higher  than  one's  own  habitual  standard  in 
intellectual  matters,  a  like  respectful  recognition  of  a 
superior  ideal,  is  caused,  in  the  intellectual  sphere,  by 
sensitiveness  of  intelligence.  Those  whose  intelligence 
is  quickest,  openest,  most  sensitive,  are  readiest  with  this 
deference  ;  those  whose  intelligence  is  less  delicate  and 
sensitive  are  less  disposed  to  it. — Essays  in  Criticism. 

DISTINCTION. 

Of  this  quality  the  world  is  impatient  ;  it  chafes 
against  it,  rails  at  it,  insults  it,  hates  it ; — it  ends 
by  receiving  its  influence,  and  by  undergoing  its  law. 
This  quality  at  last  inexorably  corrects  the  world's  blun- 
ders, and  fixes  the  world's  ideals.  It  procures  that  the 
popular  poet  shall  not  finally  pass  for  a  Pindar,  nor  the 
popular  historian  for  a  Tacitus,  nor  the  popular  preacher 
for  a  Bossuet.— ^^i-rtj^  in  Criticism. 

CURIOSITY. 

The  notion  of  the  free  play  of  the  mind  upon  all  subjects 
being  a  pleasure  in  itself,  being  an  object  of  desire,  being 
an  essential  provider  of  elements  without  which  a  nation's 
spirit,  whatever  compensations  it  may  have  for  them, 
must,  in  the  long  run,  die  of  inanition,  hardly  enters  into 
an  Englishman's  thoughts.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  word 
curiosity,  which  in  other  languages  is  used  in  a  good  sense, 
to  mean,  as  a  high  and  fine  quality  of  man's  nature,  just 


1 2  Literature. 


this  disifiterested  love  of  a  free  play  of  the  mind  on  all 
subjects  for  its  own  sake, — it  is  noticeable,  I  say,  that 
this  word  has  in  our  language  no  sense  of  the  kind, 
no  sense  but  a  rather  bad  and  disparaging  one.  But 
criticism,  real  criticism,  is  essentially  the  exercise  of  this 
very  quality.  It  obeys  an  instinct  prompting  it  to  try  to 
know  the  best  that  is  known  and  thought  in  the  world, 
irrespectively  of  practice,  politics,  and  everything  of  the 
kind ;  and  to  value  knowledge  and  thought  as  they 
approach  this  best,  without  the  intrusion  of  any  other 
considerations  whatever.  This  is  an  instinct  for  which 
there  is,  I  think,  lif-le  original  sympathy  in  the  practical 
English  nature,  and  what  there  was  of  it  has  undergone 
a  long  benumbing  period  of  blight  and  suppression  in 
the  epoch  of  concentration  which  followed  the  French 
Revolution. — Essays  in  Criticism. 

SYSTEMATIC  JUDGMENTS. 

Many  and  diverse  must  be  the  judgments  passed  upon 
every  great  poet,  upon  every  considerable  writer.  There 
is  the  judgment  of  enthusiasm  and  admiration,  which 
proceeds  from  ardent  youth,  easily  fired,  eager  to  find  a 
hero  and  to  worship  him.  There  is  the  judgment  of 
gratitude  and  sympathy,  which  proceeds  from  those  who 
find  in  an  author  what  helps  them,  what  they  want,  and 
who  rate  him  at  a  very  high  value  accordingly.  There  is 
the  judgment  of  ignorance,  the  judgment  of  inconipati- 


Systematic  ytidgments.  13 


bility,  the  judgment  of  envy  and  jealousy.  Finally,  there  is 
the  systematic  judgment,  and  this  judgment  is  the  most 
worthless  of  all.  The  sharp  scrutiny  of  envy  and  jealousy 
may  bring  real  faults  to  light.  The  judgments  of  incom- 
patibility and  ignorance  are  instructive,  whether  they 
reveal  necessary  clefts  of  separation  between  the  experi- 
ences of  different  sorts  of  people,  or  reveal  simply  the 
narrowness  and  bounded  view  of  those  who  judge.  But 
the  systematic  judgment  is  altogether  unprofitable.  Its 
author  has  not  really  his  eye  upon  the  professed  object 
of  his  criticism  at  all,  but  upon  something  else  which  he 
wants  to  prove  by  means  of  that  object.  He  neither 
really  tells  us,  therefore,  anything  about  the  object,  nor 
anything  about  his  own  ignorance  of  the  object.  He 
never  fairly  looks  at  it,  he  is  looking  at  something  else. 
'  Perhaps  if  he  looked  at  it  straight  and  full,  looked  at  it 
simply,  he  might  be  able  to  pass  a  good  judgment  on  it. 
As  it  is,  all  he  tells  us  is  that  he  is  no  genuine  critic,  but 
a  man  with  a  system,  an  advocate. 

Here  is  the  fault  of  Professor  Hermann  Grimm,  and 
of  his  Berlin  lectures  on  Goethe.  The  professor  is  a 
man  with  a  system  ;  the  lectures  are  a  piece  of  advo- 
cacy. Professor  Grimm  is  not  looking  straight  at  '  the 
greatest  poet  of  all  times  and  of  all  peoples  ; '  he  is 
looking  at  the  necessities,  as  to  literary  glory,  of  the 
new  German  empire. — Mixed  Essays. 


14   ■  Literature. 


THE  JOURNEYMAN-WORK  OF  LITERATURE. 

Educated  opinion  exists  here  as  in  France  ;  but  in 
France  the  Academy  serves  as  a  sort  of  centre  and  rally- 
ing-point  to  it,  and  gives  it  a  force  which  it  has  not  got 
here.  Why  is  all  \he.  journeyman-work  of  literature,  as  I 
may  call  it,  so  much  worse  done  here  than  it  is  in  France  ? 
I  do  not  wish  to  hurt  any  one's  feelings  ;  but  surely  this 
is  so.  Think  of  the  difference  between  our  books  of 
reference  and  those  of  the  French,  between  our  bio- 
graphical dictionaries  (to  take  a  striking  instance)  and 
theirs  ;  think  of  the  difference  between  the  translations 
of  the  classics  turned  out  for  Mr.  Bohn's  library  and 
those  turned  out  for  M.  Nisard's  collection  !  As  a 
general  rule,  hardly  any  one  amongst  us,  who  knows  French 
and  German  well,  would  use  an  English  book  of  reference 
when  he  could  get  a  French  or  German  one  ;  or  would 
look  at  an  English  prose  translation  of  an  ancient  author 
when  he  could  get  a  French  or  German  one.  It  is  not 
that  there  do  not  exist  in  England,  as  in  France,  a  num- 
ber of  people  perfectly  well  able  to  discern  what  is  good, 
in  these  things,  from  what  is  bad,  and  preferring  what  is 
good  ;  but  they  are  isolated,  they  form  no  powerful  body 
of  opinion,  they  are  not  strong  enough  to  set  a  standard 
up  to  which  even  the  journeyman-work  of  literature 
must  be  brought,  if  it  is  to  be  vendible.  Ignorance  and 
charlatanism  in  work  of  this  kind  are  always  trying  to 


The  y om'7iey?nan--dJork  of  Liter'ahire.     15 


pass  off  their  wares  as  excellent,  and  to  cry  down  criticism 
as  the  voice  of  an  insignificant,  over-fastidious  minority  ; 
they  easily  persuade  the  multitude  that  this  is  so  when 
the  minority  is  scattered  about  as  it  is  here  ;  not  so 
easily  when  it  is  banded  together  as  in  the  French 
Academy. — Essays  in  Criticism. 

THE   NOTE    OF  PROVINCIALITY. 

In  a  production  which  we  have  all  been  reading  lately,  a 
production  stamped  throughout  with  a  literary  quality  very 
rare  in  this  country, — urbanity ;  in  this  production,  the 
work  of  a  man  never  to  be  named  by  any  son  of  Oxford 
without  sympathy,  a  man  who  alone  in  Oxford  of  his 
generation,  alone  of  many  generations,  conveyed  to  us 
in  his  genius  that  same  charm,  that  same  ineffable  senti- 
ment, which  this  exquisite  place  itself  conveys, — I  mean 
Dr.  Newman, — an  expression  is  frequently  used  which  is 
more  common  in  theological  than  in  literary  language, 
but  which  seems  to  me  fitted  to  be  of  general  service  ; 
the  note  of  so  and  so,  the  note  of  catholicity,  the  note  of 
antiquity,  the  note  of  sanctity,  and  so  on.  Adopting  this 
expressive  word,  I  say  that  in  the  bulk  of  the  intellectual 
work  of  a  nation  which  has  no  centre,  no  intellectual 
metropolis  like  an  Academy,  like  M.  Sainte-Beuve's 
'sovereign  organ  of  opinion,'  like  M.  Renan's  'recog- 
nised authority  in  matters  of  tone  and  taste,' — there  is 
observable  a  note  of  provinciality.     Now,  to  get  rid  of  pro- 


1 6  Literature. 


vinciality  is  a  certain  stage  of  culture ;  a  stage  the  positive 
result  of  which  we  must  not  make  of  too  much  import- 
ance, but  which  is,  nevertheless,  indispensable  ;  for  it 
brings  us  on  to  the  platform  where  alone  the  best  and 
highest  intellectual  work  can  be  fairly  said  to  begin. 
Work  done  after  men  have  reached  this  platform  is 
classical;  and  that  is  the  only  work  which,  in  the  long 
run,  can  stand. '  All  the  scorice  in  the  work  of  men  of 
great  genius  who  have  not  lived  on  this  platform,  are  due 
to  their  not  having  lived  on  it.  Genius  raises  them  to  it 
by  moments,  and  the  portions  of  their  work  which  are 
immortal  are  done  at  these  moments  ;  but  more  of  it 
would  have  been  immortal  if  they  had  not  reached  this 
platform  at  moments  only,  if  they  had  had  the  culture 
which  makes  men  live  there. — Essays  in  Criticism. 

AN  ENGLISH  ACADEMY. 

Nations  have  their  own  modes  of  acting,  and  these 
modes  are  not  easily  changed  ;  they  are  even  consecrated, 
when  great  things  have  been  done  in  them.  When  a 
literature  has  produced  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  when  it 
has  even  produced  Swift  and  Burke,  it  cannot  well 
abandon  its  traditions  ;  it  can  hardly  begin,  at  this  late 
time  of  day,  with  an  institution  like  the  French  Academy. 
I  think  academies  with  a  limited,  special,  scientific  scope, 
in  the  various  lines  of  intellectual  work, — academies  like  . 
that  of  Berlin,  for  instance, — we  with  time  may,  and  pro- 


An  English  Academy.  i  7 

bably  shall,  establish.  -  And  no  doubt  they  will  do  good ; 
no  doubt  the  presence  of  such  influential  centres  of  cor- 
rect information  will  tend  to  raise  the  standard  amongst 
us  for  what  I  have  called  the  journeyman-work  of  litera- 
ture, and  to  free  us  from  the  scandal  of  such  biographical 
dictionaries  as  Chalmers's,  or  such  translations  as  a 
recent  one  of  Spinoza,  or  perhaps,  such  philological 
freaks  as  Mr.  Forster's  about  the  one  primeval  language. 
But  an  academy  quite  like  the  French  Academy,  a 
sovereign  organ  of  the  highest  literary  opinion,  a  recog- 
nised authority  in  matters  of  intellectual  tone  and  taste, 
we  shall  hardly  have,  and  perhaps  we  ought  not  to  wish 
to  have  it.  But  then  every  one  amongst  us  with  any  turn 
for  literature  will  do  well  to  remember  to  what  short- 
comings and  excesses,  which  such  an  academy  tends  to 
correct,  we  are  liable ;  and  the  more  liable,  of  course, 
for  not  having  it. — Essays  in  Criticism. 

THE  SAME. 

Because  I  have  freely  pointed  out  the  dangers  and  in- 
conveniences to  which  our  literature  is  exposed  in  the 
absence  of  any  centre  of  taste  and  authority  like  the  French 
Academy,  it  is  constantly  said  that  I  want  to  introduce 
here  in  England  an  institution  like  the  French  Academy. 
I  have,  indeed,  expressly  declared  that  I  wanted  no 
such  thing.  But  let  me  notice  how  it  is  just  our  worship 
of  machinery,  and  of  external  doing,  which  leads  to  this 

c 


1 8  Literature. 


charge  being  brought ;  and  how  the  inwardness  of  culture 
would  make  us  seize,  for  watching  and  cure,  the  faults  to 
which  our  want  of  an  Academy  inclines  us,  and  yet  pre- 
vent us  from  trusting  to  an  arm  of  flesh,  as  the  Puritans 
say, — from  blindly  flying  to  this  outward  machinery  of 
an  Academy  in  order  to  help  ourselves.  For  the  very 
same  culture  and  free  inward  play  of  thought  which 
shows  how  the  Corinthian  style,  or  the  whimsies  about 
the  One  Primeval  Language,  are  generated  and  strength- 
ened in  the  absence  of  an  Academy,  shows  us,  too, 
how  little  any  Academy,  such  as  we  should  be  likely 
to  get,  would  cure  them.  Every  one  who  knows  the 
characteristics  of  our  national  life,  knows  exactly  what 
an  English  Academy  would  be  like.  One  can  see  the 
happy  family  in  one's  mind's  eye  as  distinctly  as  if  it  were 
already  constituted.  Lord  Stanhope,'  the  Dean  of  St. 
Paurs,2  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,'  Lord  Houghton,  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, the  Dean  of  Westminster,  Mr.  Froude,  Mr.  Henry 
Reeve, — everything  which  is  influential,  accomplished, 
and  distinguished ;  and  then,  some  fine  morning,  a  dis- 
satisfaction of  the  public  mind  with  this  brilliant  and 
select  coterie,  a  flight  of  Corinthian  leading  articles,  and 
an  irruption  of  Mr.  G.  A.  Sala.  Clearly,  this  is  not  what 
will  do  us  good.  The  very  same  faults, — the  want  of 
sensitiveness  of  intellectual  conscience,  the  disbelief  in 

'  The  late  Lord  Stanhope.         ^  The  late  Dean  Milman. 
3  The  late  Tiishoj)  Wilhcifcrcc. 


An  English  Academy.  19 

right  reason,  the  disHke  of  authority, — which  have  hin- 
dered our  having  an  Academy  and  have  worked  injuri- 
ously in  our  literature,  would  also  hinder  us  from  making 
our  Academy,  if  we  established  it,  one  which  would 
really  correct  them. — Culture  and  Anarchy. 

CREATIVE  EPOCHS. 

The  grand  work  of  literary  genius  is  a  work  of  synthesis 
and  exposition,   not  of  analysis  and    discovery  ;  its  gift 
lies  in  the  faculty  of  being  happily  inspired  by  a  certain 
intellectual  and  spiritual  atmosphere,  by  a  certain  order 
of  ideas,  when  it  finds  itself  in  them  ;  of  dealing  divinely 
with  these  ideas,  presenting  them  in  the  most  effective 
and   attractive   combinations, — making   beautiful  works 
with  them,  in  short.     But  it  must  have  the  atmosphere, 
it  must  find  itself  amidst  the  order  of  ideas,  in  order  to 
work  freely  ;  and  these  it  is  not  so  easy  to  command. 
This  is  why  great  creative  epochs  in  literature  are  so  rare, 
this  is  why  there  is  so  much  that  is  unsatisfactory  in  the 
productions  of  many  men  of  real  genius  ; — because  for 
the  creation  of  a  master-work  of  literature  two  powers 
must  concur,  the  power  of  the  man  and  the  power  of  the 
moment,  and  the  man  is  not  enough  without  the  moment ; 
the  creative  power  has,  for  its  happy  exercise,  appointed 
elements,  and  those  elements  are  not  in  its  own  control. 
— Essays  in  Criticism. 


20  Literature. 


GENIUS   OF  HOMER. 

Homer  has  not  only  the  English  vigour,  he  has  the 
Greek  grace  ;  and  when  one  observes  the  boisterous, 
rollicking  way,  in  which  his  English  admirers, — even  men 
of  genius,  like  the  late  Professor  Wilson, — love  to  talk  of 
Homer  and  his  poetry,  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  there 
is  no  very  deep  community  of  nature  between  them  and 
the  object  of  their  enthusiasm.  '  It  is  all  very  well,  my 
good  friends,'  I  always  imagine  Homer  saying  to  them,  if 
he  could  hear  them  :  '  you  do  me  a  great  deal  of  honour, 
but  somehow  or  other  you  praise  me  too  like  barbarians,' 
For  Homer's  grandeur  is  not  the  mixed  and  turbid 
grandeur  of  the  great  poets  of  the  north,  of  the  authors 
of  Othello  and  Faust  ;  it  is  a  perfect,  a  lovely  grandeur. 
Certainly  his  poetry  has  all  the  energy  and  power  of  the 
poetry  of  our  ruder  climates  ;  but  it  has,  besides,  the 
pure  lines  of  an  Ionian  horizon,  the  liquid  clearness  of  an 
Ionian  sky.  — Lectures  on  Tra7islathtg  Hof/ier. 

HOMER  AND    THE  BIBLE. 

We  shall  find  one  English  book  and  one  only,  where,  as 
in  the  Iliad  itself,  perfect  plainness  of  speech  is  allied 
with  perfect  nobleness  ;  and  that  book  is  the  Bible.  No 
one  could  see  this  more  clearly  than  Pope  saw  it.  'This 
pure  and  noble  simplicity,'  he  says,  *is  nowhere  in  such 
perfection  as  in  the  Scripture  and  Homer.'    Yet  even 


Homci'  and  the  Bible.  2 1 


with  Pope  a  woman  is  a  ' fair,'  a  father  is  a  'sire,'  and  an 
old  man  a  '  reverend  sage,'  and  so  on  through  all  the 
phrases  of  that  pseudo-Augustan,  and  most  unbiblical, 
vocabulary.  The  Bible,  however,  is  undoubtedly  the 
grand  mine  of  diction  for  the  translator  of  Homer  ;  and, 
if  he  knows  how  to  discriminate  truly  between  what  will 
suit  him  and  what  will  not,  the  Bible  may  afford  him 
also  invaluable  lessons  of  style. — Lectures  on  Translating 
Homer. 

HOMER  AND   THE   ELIZABETHANS. 

As  eminently  as  Homer  is  plain,  so  eminently  is  the 
Elizabethan  literature  in  general,  and  Chapman  in  parti-, 
cular,  fanciful.  Steeped  in  humours  and  fantasticality  up 
to  its  very  lips,  the  Elizabethan  age,  newly  arrived  at  the 
free  use  of  the  human  faculties  after  their  long  term  of 
bondage,  and  delighting  to  exercise  them  freely,  suffers 
from  its  own  extravagance  in  this  first  exercise  of  them, 
can  hardly  bring  itself  to  see  an  object  quietly  or  to  de- 
scribe it  temperately.  Happily,  in  the  translation  of  the 
Bible,  the  sacred  character  of  their  original  inspired  the 
translators  with  such  respect,  that  they  did  not  dare  to 
give  the  rein  to  their  own  fancies  in  dealing  with  it.  But, 
in  dealing  with  works  of  profane  literature,  in  dealing 
with  poetical  works  above  all,  which  highly  stimulated 
them,  one  may  say  that  the  minds  of  the  Elizabethan 
translators  were  too  active ;  that  they  could  not  forbear 


22  Literature. 


importing  so  much  of  their  own,  and  this  of  a  most  pecu- 
liar and  Elizabethan  character,  into  their  original,  that 
they  effaced  the  character  of  the  original  itself — Lectures 
071  Translating  Hotner. 

HOMER,    SPENSER,  AND  KEATS. 

Spenser's  verse  is  fluid  and  rapid,  no  doubt,  but  there 
nre  more  ways  than  one  of  being  fluid  and  rapid,  and 
Homer  is  fluid  and  rapid  in  quite  another  way  than 
Spenser.  Spenser's  manner  is  no  more  Homeric  than  is 
the  manner  of  the  one  modern  inheritor  of  Spenser's 
beautiful  gift ;  the  poet,  who  evidently  caught  from 
Spenser  his  sweet  and  easy-slipping  movement,  and  who 
has  exquisitely  employed  it ;  a  Spenserian  genius,  nay,  a 
genius  by  natural  endowment  richer  probably  than  even 
Spenser ;  that  light  which  shines  so  uno^pected  and 
without  fellow  in  our  century,  an  Elizabethan  born  too 
late,  the  early  lost  and  admirably  gifted  Keats. — Lectures 
on  Translating  Homer. 

HOMER  AND  SCOTT. 

The  poetic  style  of  Scott  is, — (it  becomes  necessary  to 
say  so  when  it  is  proposed  to  '  translate  Homer  into  the 
melodies  of  Marmion'), — it  is,  tried  by  the  highest 
standards,  a  bastard  epic  style  ;  and  that  is  why,  out  of 
his  own  powerful  hands,  it  has  had  so  little  success.  It 
is  a  less  natural,  and  therefore  a  less  good  style,  than  the 


Homer  and  Scott.  23 

original  ballad-style  ;  while  it  shares  with  the  ballad-style 

the  inherent  incapacity  of  rising  into  the  grand  style,  of 

adequately  rendering  Homer.     Scott  is  certainly  at  his 

best  in  his  battles.     Of  Homer  you  could  not  say  this  ; 

he  is  not  better  in  his  battles  than  elsewhere  ;  but  even 

between  the  battle-pieces  of  the  two  there  exists  all  the 

difference  which  there  is  between  an  able  work  and  a 

masterpiece. 

Tunstall  lies  dead  upon  the  field, 
His  life-blood  stains  the  spotless  shield  : 
Edmund  is  down — my  life  is  reft — 
The  Admiral  alone  is  left. — 

— '  For  not  in  the  hands  of  Diomede  the  son  of  Tydeus 
rages  the  spear,  to  ward  off  destruction  from  the  Danaans ; 
neither  as  yet  have  I  heard  the  voice  of  the  son  of  Atreus, 
shouting  from  out  his  hated  mouth  ;  but  the  voice  of 
Hector  the  slayer  of  men  bursts  round  me,  as  he  cheers 
on  the  Trojans  ;  and  they  with  their  yellings  fill  all  the 
plain,  overcoming  the  Achaians  in  the  battle.' — I  protest 
that,  to  my  feeling,  Homer's  performance,  even  through 
that  pale  and  far-off  shadow  of  a  prose  translation,  still 
has  a  hundred  times  more  of  the  grand  manner  about  it, 
than  the  original  poetry  of  Scott. — Lectures  on  Translating 
Homer. 

HOMER  AND    THE  BALLADISTS. 

But,  after  all.  Homer  is  not  a  better  poet  than  the  bal- 
ladists,  because  he  has  taken  in  the  hexameter  a  better 


24  Literature. 


instrument ;  he  took  this  instrument  because  he  was  a 
different  poet  from  them  ;  so  different, — not  only  so  much 
better,  but  so  essentially  different,- — that  he  is  not  to  be 
classed  with  them  at  all.  Poets  receive  their  distinctive 
character,  not  from  their  subject,  but  from  their  applica- 
tion to  that  subject  of  the  ideas  (to  quote  the  '  Recluse ') 

On  man,  on  nature,  and  on  human  life, 

which  they  have  acquired  for  themselves.  In  the  ballad- 
poets  in  general,  as  in  men  of  a  rude  and  early  stage  of 
the  world,  in  whom  their  humanity  is  not  yet  variously 
and  fully  developed,  the  stock  of  these  ideas  is  scanty, 
and  the  ideas  themselves  not  very  effective  or  profound. 
In  them  the  narrative  itself  is  the  great  matter,  not  the 
spirit  and  significance  which  underlies  the  narrative. 
Even  in  later  times  of  richly  developed  life  and  thought, 
poets  appear  who  have  what  may  be  called  a  balladisfs 
mind ;  in  whom  a  fresh  and  lively  curiosity  for  the  out- 
ward spectacle  of  the  world  is  much  more  strong  than 
their  sense  of  the  inward  significance  of  that  spectacle. 
When  they  apply  ideas  to  their  narrative  of  human  events, 
you  feel  that  they  are,  so  to  speak,  travelling  out  of  their 
own  province  :  in  the  best  of  them  you  feel  this  per- 
ceptibly, but  in  those  of  a  lower  order  you  feel  it  very 
strongly.  Even  Sir  Walter  Scott's  efforts  of  this  kind, — 
even,  for  instance,  the 

Breathes  there  the  man  with  soul  so  dead  .... 


Homer  and  the  Balladists.  25 

or  the 

Oh  woman  !  in  our  hours  of  ease  .... 

even  these  leave,  I  think,  as  high  poetry,  much  to  be 
desired;  far  more  than  the  same  poet's  descriptions  of  a 
hunt  or  a  battle.     But  Lord  Macaulay's 

Then  out  spake  brave  Horatius, 

The  captain  of  the  gate  : 
'  To  all  the  men  upon  this  earth 
Death  cometh  soon  or  late.'  .  .  . 

(and  here,  since  I  have  been  reproached  with  under- 
valuing Lord  Macaulay's  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  let  me 
frankly  say  that,  to  my  mind,  a  man's  power  to  detect  the 
ring  of  false  metal  in  those  Lays  is  a  good  measure  of  his 
fitness  to  give  an  opinion  about  poetical  matters  at  all), — 
I  say.  Lord  Macaulay's 

To  all  the  men  upon  this  earth 
Death  cometh  soon  or  late  .... 

it  is  hard  to  read  without  a  cry  of  pain.  But  with  Homer 
it  is  very  different.  This  'noble  barbarian,'  this  'savage 
with  the  lively  eye,' — whose  verse,  Mr.  Newman  thinks, 
would  affect  us,  if  we  could  hear  the  living  Homer,  '  like 
an  elegant  and  simple  melody  from  an  African  of  the 
Gold  Coast,' — is  never  more  at  home,  never  more  nobly 
himself,  than  in  applying  profound  ideas  to  his  narrative. 
As  a  poet  he  belongs, — narrative  as  is  his  poetry,  and 
early  as  is  his  date, — to  an  incomparably  more  developed 


26  Liter aliLve. 


spiritual  and  intellectual  order  than  the  balladists,  or  than 
Scott  and  Macaulay ;  he  is  here  as  much  to  be  distin- 
guished from  them,  and  in  the  same  way,  as  Milton  is  to 
be  distinguished  from  them.  He  is,  indeed,  rather  to  be 
classed  with  Milton  'than  with  the  balladists  and  Scott ; 
for  what  he  has  in  common  with  Milton, — the  noble 
and  profound  application  of  ideas  to  life, — is  the  most 
essential  part  of  poetic  greatness. — Last  Words  on  Trans- 
lating Homer. 

KEY-NOTE  TO  THE  ILIAD. 
'  From  Homer  and  Polygnotus  I  every  day  learn  more 
clearly,'  says  Goethe,  'that  in  our  life  here  abov^e  ground 
we  have,  properly  speaking,  to  enact  Hell : '  • — if  the 
student  must  absolutely  have  a  key-note  to  the  Iliad,  let 
him  take  this  of  Goethe,  and  see  what  he  can  do  with 
it. — Lectures  on  Translating  Homer. 

EXHILARATION  OF  HEBREW  PROPHECY. 

To  make  a  great  work  pass  into  the  popular  mind  is  not 
easy  ;  but  the  series  of  chapters  at  the  end  of  the  Book 
of  Isaiah,  the  chapters  containing  the  great  prophecy  of 
Israel's  restoration, — have,  as  has  Hebrew  prophecy  in 
general,  but  to  a  still  higher  degree  than  anything  else 
in  Hebrew  prophecy,  one  quality  which  facilitates  this 
passage  for  them  :  their  boundless  exhilaration.  Much 
good  poetry  is  profoundly  melancholy  ;  now,  the  life  of 
the  people  is  such  that  in  literature  they  require  joy.     If 


ExJularation  of  Hebrew  Prophecy.         27 

ever  that  '  good  time  coming,'  for  which  they  long,  was 
presented  with  energy  and  magnificence,  it  is  in  these 
chapters  ;  it  is  impossible  to  read  them  without  catching 
its  glow. — A  Bible  Reading  for  Schools. 

THE    CELTIC  GENIUS. 

Sentimental, — always  ready  to  react  against  tlie  despot- 
ism of  fact ;  that  is  the  description  which  a  great  friend  ^ 
of  the  Celt  gives  of  him.  And  it  is  not  a  bad  description 
of  the  sentimental  temperament ;  it  lets  us  into  the 
secret  of  its  dangers  and  of  its  habitual  want  of  success. 
Balance,  measure,  and  patience,  these  are  the  eternal 
conditions,  even  supposing  the  happiest  temperament  to 
start  with,  of  high  success  ;  and  balance,  measure,  and 
patience  are  just  what  the  Celt  has  never  had.  Even  in 
the  world  of  spiritual  creation,  he  has  never,  in  spite  of 
his  admirable  gifts  of  quick  perception  and  warm  emo- 
tion, succeeded  perfectly,  because  he  never  has  had 
steadiness,  patience,  sanity  enough  to  comply  with  the 
conditions  under  which  alone  can  expression  be  perfectly 
given  to  the  finest  perceptions  and  emotions.  The  Greek 
has  the  same  perceptive,  emotional  temperament  as  the 
Celt ;  but  he  adds  to  this  temperament  the  sense  of  mea- 
sure ;  hence  his  admirable  success  in  the  plastic  arts,  in 
which  the  Celtic  genius,  with  its  chafing  against  the  des- 
potism of  fact,  its  perpetual  straining  after  mere  emotion, 

•  M.  Henri  Martin. 


28  Literature. 


has  accomplished  nothing.  In  the  comparatively  petty  art 
of  ornamentation,  in  rings,  brooches,  crosiers,  relic-cases, 
and  so  on,  he  has  done  just  enough  to  show  his  delicacy 
of  taste,  his  happy  temperament  ;  but  the  grand  difficul- 
ties of  painting  and  sculpture,  the  prolonged  dealings  of 
spirit  with  matter,  he  has  never  had  patience  for.  Take 
the  more  spiritual  arts  of  music  and  poetry.  All  which 
emotion  alone  can  do  in  music  the  Celt  has  done  ;  the 
very  soul  of  emotion  breathes  in  the  Scotch  and  Irish 
airs  ;  but  with  all  this  power  of  musical  feeling,  what  has 
the  Celt,  so  eager  for  emotion  that  he  has  not  patience 
for  science,  effected  in  music,  to  be  compared  with  what 
the  less  emotional  German,  steadily  developing  his 
musical  feeling  with  the  science  of  a  Sebastian  Bach  or 
a  Beethoven,  has  effected  ?  In  poetry,  again,— poetry 
which  the  Celt  has  so  passionately,  so  nobly  loved  ; 
j  poetry  where  emotion  counts  for  so  much,  but  where  rea- 
son, too,  reason,  measure,  sanity,  also  count  for  so  much, 
— the  Celt  has  shown  genius,  indeed,  splendid  genius  ; 
but  even  here  his  faults  have  clung  to  him,  and  have 
hindered  him  from  producing  great  works  such  as  other 
nations  with  a  genius  for  poetry, — the  Greeks,  say,  or  the 
Italians, — have  produced.  The  Celt  has  not  produced 
great  poetical  works,  he  has  only  produced  poetry  with 
an  air  of  greatness  investing  it  all,  and  sometimes  giving, 
moreover,  to  short  pieces,  or  to  passages,  lines,  and 
snatches  of  long  pieces,  singular  beauty  and  power.     And 


The  Celtic  Genius.  29 

yet  he  loved  poetry  so  much  that  he  grudged  no  pains 
to  it ;  but  the  true  art,  the  architedojiice  which  shapes 
great  works,  such  as  the  '  Agamemnon  '  or  the  '  Divine 
Comedy,'  conies  only  after  a  steady,  deep-searching  survey, 
a  firm  conception  of  the  facts  of  human  life,  which  the 
Celt  has  not  patience  for.  So  he  runs  off  into  technic, 
where  he  employs  the  utmost  elaboration,  and  attains 
astonishing  skill ;  but  in  the  contents  of  his  poetry  you 
have  only  so  much  interpretation  of  the  world  as  the 
first  dash  of  a  quick,  strong  perception,  and  then  senti- 
ment, infinite  sentiment,  can  bring  you.  Here,  too,  his 
want  of  sanity  and  steadfastness  has  kept  the  Celt  back 
from  the  highest  success. 

If  his  rebellion  against  fact  has  thus  lamed  the  Celt 
even  in  spiritual  work,  how  much  more  must  it  have 
lamed  him  in  the  world  of  business  and  politics  !  The 
skilful  and  resolute  appliance  of  means  to  ends  which  is 
needed  both  to  make  progress  in  material  civilisation, 
and  also  to  form  powerful  states,  is  just  what  the  Celt 
has  least  turn  for.  He  is  sensual,  or  at  least  sen- 
suous ;  loves  bright  colours,  company,  and  pleasure  ; 
and  here  he  is  like  the  Greek  and  Latin  races.  But 
compare  the  talent  the  Greek  and  Latin  (or  Latinised) 
races  have  shown  for  gratifying  their  senses,  for  procur- 
ing an  outward  life  rich,  luxurious,  splendid,  with  the 
Celt's  failure  to  reach  any  material  civilisation  sound 
and  satisfying,  and  not  out  at  elbows,  poor,  slovenly,  and 


30  Liter  attire. 


half-barbarous.  The  sensuousness  of  the  Greek  made 
Sybaris  and  Corinth,  the  sensuousness  of  the  Latin  made 
Rome  and  Baise,  the  sensuousness  of  the  Latinised 
Frenchman  makes  Paris  ;  the  sensuousness  of  the  Celt 
proper  has  made  Ireland.  Even  in  his  ideal  heroic  times, 
his  gay  and  sensuous  nature  cannot  carry  him,  in  the 
appliances  of  his  favourite  life  of  sociability  and  pleasure, 
beyond  the  gross  and  creeping  Saxon  whom  he  despises ; 
the  regent  Breas,  we  are  told  in  the  '  Battle  of  Moytura  of 
the  Fomorians,'  became  unpopular  because  'the  knives  of 
his  people  were  not  greased  at  his  table,  nor  did  their 
breath  smell  of  ale  at  the  banquet.'  In  its  grossness  and 
barbarousness  is  not  that  Saxon,  as  Saxon  as  it  can  be  ? 
just  what  the  Latinised  Norman,  sensuous  and  sociable 
like  the  Celt,  but  with  the  talent  to  make  this  bent  of  his 
serve  to  a  practical  embellishment  of  his  mode  of  living, 
found  so  disgusting  in  the  Saxon. 

And  ^s  in  material  civilisation  he  has  been  ineffectual, 
so  has  the  Celt  been  ineffectual  in  politics.  This  colossal, 
impetuous,  adventurous  wanderer,  the  Titan  of  the  early 
world,  who  in  primitive  times  iill?  so  large  a  place  on 
earth's  scene,  dwindles  and  dwindles  as  history  goes  on, 
and  at  last  is  shrunk  to  what  we  now  see  hirn.  For  ages 
and  ages  the  world  has  been  constantly  slipping,  ever 
more  and  more,  out  of  the  Celt's  grasp.  'They  went 
forth  to  the  war,'  Ossian  says  most  truly,  ^but  they  always 
fell.'' — Study  of  Celtic  Literature. 


Natural  Magic.  3 1 


NATURAL  MAGIC. 

The  Celt's  quick  feeling  for  what  is  noble  and  distin- 
guished gave  to  his  poetry  style  ;  his  indomitable  persona- 
lity gave  it  pride  and  passion  ;  his  sensibility  and  nervous 
exaltation  gave  it  a  better  gift  still,  the  gift  of  rendering 
with  wonderful  felicity  the  magical  charm  of  nature. 
The  forest  solitude,  the  bubbling  spring,  the  wild  flowers, 
are  everywhere  in  romance.  They  have  a  mysterious 
life  and  grace  there  ;  they  are  nature's  own  children,  and 
utter  her  secret  in  a  way  which  makes  them  something 
quite  different  from  the  woods,  waters,  and  plants  of 
Greek  and  Latin  poetry.  Now,  of  this  delicate  natural 
magic  Celtic  romance  is  so  pre-eminent  a  mistress,  that  it 
seems  impossible  to  believe  the  power  did  not  come  into 
romance  from  the  Celts.  >  Magic  is  just  the  word  for  it, — 
the  magic  of  nature  ;  not  merely  the  beauty  of  nature, — 
that  the  Greeks  and  Latins  had  ;  not  merely  an  honest 
smack  of  the  soil,  a  faithful  realism,  — that  the  Germans 
had  ;  but  the  intimate  life  of  nature,  her  weird  power 
and  her  fairy  charm.  As  the  Saxon  names  of  places, 
with  the  pleasant  wholesome  smack  of  the  soil  in  them, 
— Weathersfield,   Thaxted,  Shalford, — are  to  the  Celtic 

'  Rhyme, — the  most  striking  characteristic  of  our  modern 
poetry  as  distinguished  from  that  of  the  ancients,  and  a  main  source, 
to  our  poetry,  of  its  magic  and  charm,  of  what  we  call  its  romantic 
eletncnt,  —  rhyme  itself,  all  the  weight  of  evidence  tends  to  show, 
comes  into  our  poetry  from  the  Celts. 


"  '•  Litei'ature. 


o 


names  of  places,  with  their  penetrating,  lofty  beauty, — 
Velindra,  Tyntagel,  Caernarvon, — so  is  the  homely  real- 
ism of  German  and  Norse  nature  to  the  fairy-like  loveli- 
ness of  Celtic  nature.     Gwydion  wants  a  wife  for  his 
pupil:  'Well,'  says   Math,   'we  will  seek,   I  and  thou, 
by  charms  and  illusions,  to  form  a  wife  for  him  out  of 
flowers.     So  they  took  the  blossoms  of  the  oak,  and  the 
blossoms  of  the  broom,  and  the  blossoms  of  the  meadow- 
sweet, and  produced  from  them  a  maiden,  the  fairest 
and  most  graceful  that  man  ever  saw.     And  they  bap- 
tised her,  and  gave  her  the  name   of  Flower- Aspect.' 
Celtic  romance  is  full   of  exquisite  touches   like  that, 
showing  the  delicacy  of  the  Celt's  feeling  in  these  matters, 
and  how  deeply  nature  lets  him  come  into  .her  secrets. — 
Study  of  Celtic  Literature. 

HOW  POETRY  INTERPRETS. 

PoETRV  interprets  in  two  ways  ;  it  interprets  by  express- 
ing with  magical  felicity  the  physiognomy  and  movement 
of  the  outward  world,  and  it  interprets  by  expressing 
with  inspired  conviction  the  ideas  and  laws  of  the  inward 
world  of  man's  moral  and  spiritual  nature.  In  other 
words,  poetry  is  interpretative  both  by  having  natural 
magic  in  it,  and  by  having  moral  profimdity.  In  both 
ways  it  illuminates  man  ;  it  gives  to  him  a  satisfying  sense 
of  reality ;  it  reconciles  him  with  himself  and  the  universe^ 


How  Poetry  Interprets.  ^iZ 

Thus  ^schylus's  '■IpaGuvn  TroOtTi' '  and  his  *dr»/pj0/ioi/ 
ytKnfTfia  '  are  alike  interpretative.  Shakspeare  interprets 
both  when  he  says  : 

Full  many  a  glorious  morning  have  I  seen, 
Flatter  the  mountain-tops  with  sovran  eye  ; 

and  when  he  says  : 

There's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough-hew  them  as  we  will. 

These  great  poets  unite  in  themselves  the  faculty  of  both 
kinds  of  interpretation,  the  naturalistic  and  the  moral. 
But  it  is  observable  that  in  the  poets  who  unite  both 
kinds,  the  latter  (the  moral)  usually  ends  by  making 
itself  the  master. — £ssays  in  Criticism. 

SHAKSPEARE. 

It  is  not  quite  sound  and  sober  criticism  to  say,  as  Mr. 
Stopford  Brooke  does  of  Shakspeare :  '  He  was  al- 
together, from  end  to  end,  an  artist,  and  the  greatest 
artist  the  modern  world  has  known.'  Or  again  :  'In  the 
unchangeableness  of  pure  art-power  Shakspeare  stands 
entirely  alone.'  There  is  a  peculiarity  in  Mr.  Stopford 
Brooke's  use  of  the  words  art^  artist  He  means  by  an 
artist  one  whose  aim  in  writing  is  not  to  reveal  himself, 
but  to  give  pleasure  ;  he  says  most  truly  that  Shakspeare's 
aim  was  to  please,  that  Shakspeare  'made  men  and 
women  whose  dramatic  action  on  each  other  and  towards 

D 


34  Literature. 


a  catastrophe  was  intended  to  please  the  pubHc,  not  to 
reveal  himself.'  This  is  indeed  the  true  temper  of  the 
artist.  But  when  we  call  a  man  emphatically  artist^  a 
great  artist,  we  mean  something  more  than  this  temper 
in  which  he  works  ;  we  mean  by  art,  not  merely  an  aim 
to  please,  but  also,  and  more,  a  law  of  pure  and  flawless 
workmanship.  As  living  always  under  the  sway  of  this 
law,  and  as,  therefore,  a  perfect  artist,  we  do  not  con- 
ceive of  Shakspeare.  His  workmanship  is  often  far  from 
being  pure  and  flawless. 

Till  that  Bellona's  bridegroom,  lapp'd  in  proof, 
Confronted  him  with  self-comparisons — 

there  is  but  one  name  for  such  writing  as  that,  if 
Shakspeare  had  signed  it  a  thousand  times, — it  is 
detestable.  And  it  is  too  frequent  in  Shakspeare.  We 
ought  not,  therefore,  to  speak  of  Shakspeare  as  'alto- 
gether, from  end  to  end,  an  artist ; '  as  '  standing  entirely 
alone  in  the  unchangeableness  of  pure  art-power.'  He 
is  the  richest,  the  most  wonderful,  the  most  powerful, 
the  most  delightful  of  poets  ;  he  is  not  altogether,  nor 
even  eminently,  an  artist. — Mixed  Essays. 

MILTON'S  POWER   OF  STYLE. 

"Milton's  true  distinction  as  a  poet  is  undoubtedly  his 
*  unfailing  level  of  style.'  INIilton  has  always  the  sure, 
strong  touch  of  the  master.  His  power  both  of  diction 
and  of  rhythm  is  unsurpassable,  and  it  is  characterised  by 


Milton  s  Power  of  Style.  35 

being  always  present ; — not  depending  on  an  access  of 
emotion,  not  intermittent,  but,  like  the  grace  of  Raphael, 
working  in  its  possessor  as  a  constant  gift  of  nature. 
Milton's  style,  moreover,  has  the  same  propriety  and 
soundness  in  presenting  plain  matters,  as  in  the  compara- 
tively smooth  task  for  a  poet  of  presenting  grand  ones. 
His  rhythm  is  as  admirable  where,  as  in  the  line 

And  Tiresias  and  Phineus,  prophets  old 

it  is  unusual,  as  in  such  lines  as — 

With  dreadful  faces  throng'd  and  fiery  arms 

where  it  is  simplest.  And  what  high  praise  this  is,  we 
may  best  appreciate  by  considering  the  ever-recurring 
failure,  both  in  rhythm  and  in  diction,  which  we  find  in 
the  so-called  Miltonic  blank  verse  of  Thomson,  Cowper, 
Wordsworth.  What  leagues  of  lumbering  movement  ! 
what  desperate  endeavours,  as  in  Wordsworth's 

And  at  the  '  Hoop  '  alighted,  famous  inn, 

to  render  a  platitude  endurable  by  making  it  pompous  ! 
Shakspeare  himself,  divine  as  are  his  gifts,  has  not,  of  the 
marks  of  the  master,  this  one  :  perfect  sureness  of  hand 
in  his  style.  Alone  of  English  poets,  alone  in  English 
art,  Milton  has  it ;  he  is  our  great  artist  in  style,  our  one 
first-rate  master  in  the  grand  style.  He  is  as  truly  a 
master  in  this  style  as  the  great  Greeks  are,  or  Virgil,  or 
Dante.  The  number  of  such  masters  is  so  limited  that 
a  man  acquires  a  world-rank  in  poetry  and  art,  instead  of 

D  2 


36  Literature. 


a  mere  local  rank,  by  being  counted  among  them.  But 
Milton's  importance  to  us  Englishmen,  by  virtue  of  this 
distinction  of  his,  is  incalculable.  The  charm  of  a 
master's  unfailing  touch  in  diction  and  in  rhythm,  no  one, 
after  all,  can  feel  so  intimately,  so  profoundly,  as  his  own 
countrymen.  Invention,  plan,  wit,  pathos,  thought,  all 
of  them  are  in  great  measure  capable  of  being  detached 
from  the  original  work  itself,  and  of  being  exported  for 
admiration  abroad.  Diction  and  rhythm  are  not.  Even 
when  a  foreigner  can  read  the  work  in  its  own  language, 
they  are  not,  perhaps,  easily  appreciable  by  him.  It  shows 
M.  Scherer's  thorough  knowledge  of  English,  and  his 
critical  sagacity  also,  that  he  has  felt  the  force  of  them 
in  Milton.  We  natives  must  naturally  feel  it  yet  more 
powerfully.  Be  it  remembered,  too,  that  English  literature, 
full  of  vigour  and  genius  as  it  is,  is  peculiarly  impaired  by 
gropings  and  inadequacies  in  form.  And  the  same  with 
English  art.  Therefore  for  the  English  artist  in  any  line, 
if  he  is  a  true  artist,  the  study  of  Milton  may  well  have  an 
indescribable  attraction.  It  gives  him  lessons  which  no- 
where else  from  an  Englishman's  work  can  he  obtain,  and 
feeds  a  sense  which  English  work,  in  general,  seems  bent 
on  disappointing  and  baffling.  And  this  sense  is  yet  so 
deep-seated  in  human  nature, — this  sense  of  style, — that 
'  probably  not  for  artists  alone,  but  for  all  intelligent 
Englishmen  who  read  him,  its  gratification  by  Milton's 
poetry  is  a  large,  though  often  not  fully  recognised,  part 


Milton  s  Power  of  Style.  37 


of  his  charm,  and  a  very  wholesome  and  fruitful  one. 
— Mixed  Essays. 

DANTE,   SHAKSPEARE,    GOETHE. 

The  natural  magic  of  Keats  and  Wordsworth,  Byron's 

vigour  of  style  and  Titanic  personality,   may  be  wanting 

to   Goethe's   poetry  ;  but  see  what  it  has  accomplished 

without    them  !     How  much  more  than  Byron  with  his 

style  and  personality,  and  Keats  and  Wordsworth  with 

their   natural   magic  !     Why,   for  the  immense,  serious 

task  it  had  to  perform,  the  steadiness  of  German  poetry, 

its  going  near  the  ground,  its  patient  fidelity  to  nature, 

its  using  great  plainness  of  speech,  poetical  drawbacks  in 

one  point  of  view,  were  safeguards  and  helps  in  another. 

The  plainness  and  earnestness  of  these  two  Hnes  from 

Goethe  : 

Es  bildet  ein  Talent  sich  in  der  Stille, 

Sich  ein  Character  in  dem  Strom  der  Welt — 

compared  with  the  play  and  power  of  Shakspeare's  style 
or  Dante's,  suggest  at  once  the  difference  between 
Goethe's  task  and  theirs,  and  the  fitness  of  the  faithful 
laborious  German  spirit  for  its  own  task.  Dante's  task 
was  to  set  forth  the  lesson  of  the  world  from  the  point  of 
view  of  mediaeval  Catholicism  ;  the  basis  of  spiritual  life 
was  given,  Dante  had  not  to  make  this  anew.  Shak- 
speare's task  was  to  set  forth  the  spectacle  of  the  world 
when  man's  spirit  re-awoke  to  the  possession  of  the  world 


38  Literature. 


at  the  Renascence.  The  spectacle  of  human  life,  left  to 
bear  its  own  significance  and  tell  its  own  story,  but 
shown  in  all  its  fulness,  variety,  and  power,  is  at  that 
moment  the  great  matter  ;  but,  if  we  are  to  press  deeper, 
the  basis  of  spiritual  life  is  still  at  that  time  the  traditional 
religion,  reformed  or  unreformed,  of  Christendom,  and 
Shakspeare  has  not  to  supply  a  new  basis.  But  when 
Goethe  came,  Europe  had  lost  her  basis  of  spiritual  life ; 
she  had  to  find  it  again  ;  Goethe's  task  was, — the  inevit- 
able task  for  the  modern  poet  henceforth  is, — as  it  was 
for  the  Greek  poet  in  the  days  of  Pericles,  not  to  preach 
a  sublime  sermon  on  a  traditional  text  like  Dante,  not 
to  exhibit  all  the  kingdoms  of  human  life  and  the  glory 
of  them  like  Shakspeare,  but  to  interpret  human  life 
afresh,  and  to  supply  a  new  spiritual  basis  to  it.  This 
is  not  only  a  work  for  style,  eloquence,  charm,  poetry  ; 
it  is  a  work  for  science  ;  and  the  scientific,  serious  Ger- 
man spirit,  not  carried  away  by  this  and  that  intoxication 
of  ear,  and  eye,  and  self-will,  has  peculiar  aptitudes  for 
it, — Study  of  Celtic  Literature. 

GOETHE'S  NATURALISM. 

Goethe's  profound,  imperturbable  naturalism  is  abso- 
lutely fatal  to  all  routine-thinking.  He  puts  the  standard, 
once  for  all,  inside  every  man  instead  of  outside  him. 
When  Goethe  is  told,  such  a  thing  must  be  so,  there  is 
immense  authority  and  custom  in  favour  of  its  being  so, 


Goethe  s  Naturalis7it.  39 

it  has  been  held  to  be  so  for  a  thousand  years,  he  answers 
with  Olympian  politeness  :  *  But  is  it  so  ?  is  it  so  to  me  ?  ' 
Nothing  could  be  more  really  subversive  of  the  founda- 
tions on  which  the  old  European  order  rested  ;  and  it 
may  be  remarked  that  no  persons  are  so  radically  de- 
tached from  this  order,  no  persons  so  thoroughly  modern, 
as  those  who  have  felt  Goethe's  influence  most  deeply. 
If  it  is  said  that  Goethe  professes  to  have  in  this  way 
deeply  influenced  but  a  few  persons,  and  those  persons 
poets,  one  may  answer  that  he  could  have  taken  no 
better  way  to  secure,  in  the  end,  the  ear  of  the  world  ;  for 
poetry  is  simply  the  most  beautiful,  impressive,  and  widely 
effective  mode  of  saying  things,  and  hence  its  import- 
ance.—^i"j'(7)'j'  /;/  Criticism. 

GOETHE'S  GREATNESS. 

It  is  by  no  means  as  the  greatest  of  all  poets  that  Goethe 
may  rightly  call  forth  the  pride  and  praise  of  his  German 
countrymen.  It  is  as  the  clearest,  the  largest,  the  most 
helpful  thinker  of  modern  times.  It  is  not  principally  in 
his  published  works,  it  is  in  the  immense  Goethe-litera- 
ture of  letter,  journal,  and  conversation,  in  the  volumes 
of  Riemer,  Falk,  Eckermann,  the  Chancellor  von  Miiller, 
in  the  letters  to  Merck  and  Madame  von  Stein  and  many 
others,  in  the  correspondence  with  Schiller,  the  corre- 
spondence with  Zelter,  that  the  elements  for  an  impression 
of  the  truly  great,  the  truly  significant  Goethe  are  to  be 


40  Literature. 


found.  Goethe  is  the  greatest  poet  of  modern  times,  not 
because  he  is  one  of  the  half-dozen  human  beings  who  in 
the  history  of  our  race  have  shown  the  most  signal  gift  for 
poetry,  but  because,  having  a  very  considerable  gift  for 
poetry,  he  was  at  the  same  time,  in  the  width,  depth,  and 
richness  of  his  criticism  of  life,  by  far  our  greatest  modern 
man.  He  may  be  precious  and  important  to  us  on  this 
account  above  men  of  other  and  more  alien  times,  who 
as  poets  rank  higher.  Nay,  his  preciousness  and  im- 
portance as  a  clear  and  profound  modern  spirit,  as  a 
master-critic  of  modern  life,  must  communicate  a  worth 
of  their  own  to  his  poetry,  and  may  well  make  it  erro- 
neously seem  to  have  a  positive  value  and  perfectness  as 
poetry,  more  than  it  has.  It  is  most  pardonable  for  a 
student  of  Goethe,  and  may  even  for  a  time  be  service- 
able, to  fall  into  this  error.  Nevertheless,  poetical  de- 
fects, where  they  are  present,  subsist,  and  are  what  they 
are.  And  the  same  with  defects  of  character.  Time  and 
attention  bring  them  to  light ;  and  when  they  are  brought 
to  light,  it  is  not  good  for  us,  it  is  obstructing  and  re- 
tarding, to  refuse  to  see  them.  Goethe  himself  would 
have  warned  us  against  doing  so. — Mixed  Essays. 

GOETHE S  FOUNDATION. 

Pindar  and  Sophocles, — as  we  all  say  so  glibly,  and  often 
with  so  little  discernment  of  the  real  import  of  what  we 
are  saying, — had  not  many  books  ;  Shakspeare  was  no 


Goethe  s  Fotuidation.  41 

deep  reader.  True  ;  but  in  the  Greece  of  Pindar  and 
Sophocles,  in  the  England  of  Shakspeare,  the  poet  lived 
in  a  current  of  ideas  in  the  highest  degree  animating  and 
nourishing  to  the  creative  power  ;  society  was,  in  the 
fullest  measure,  permeated  by  fresh  thought,  intelligent 
and  alive.  And  this  state  of  things  is  the  true  basis  for 
the  creative  power's  exercise,  in  this  it  finds  its  data, 
its  materials,  truly  ready  for  its  hand  ;  all  the  books  and 
reading  in  the  world  are  only  valuable  as  they  are  helps 
to  this.  Even  when  this  does  not  actually  exist,  books 
and  reading  may  enable  a  man  to  construct  a  kind  of 
semblance  of  it  in  his  own  mind,  a  world  of  knowledge 
and  intelligence  in  which  he  may  live  and  work.  This  is 
by  no  means  an  equivalent,  to  the  artist,  for  the  nationally 
diffused  life  and  thought  of  the  epochs  of  Sophocles  or 
Shakspeare  ;  but,  besides  that  it  may  be  a  means  of 
preparation  for  such  epochs,  it  does  really  constitute,  if 
many  share  in  it,  a  quickening  and  sustaining  atmosphere 
of  great  value.  Such  an  atmosphere  the  many-sided 
learning  and  the  long  and  widely-combined  critical  effort 
of  Germany  formed  for  Goethe,  when  he  lived  and 
worked.  There  was  no  national  glow  of  life  and  thought 
there,  as  in  the  Athens  of  Pericles,  or  the  England  of 
Elizabeth.  That  was  the  poet's  weakness.  But  there 
was  a  sort  of  equivalent  for  it  in  the  complete  culture  and 
unfettered  thinking  of  a  large  body  of  Germans.  That 
was  his  strength.     In  the  England  of  the  first  quarter  of 


4  2  L  itcrat2ti'e. 


this  century,  there  was  neither  a  national  glow  of  life  and 
thought,  such  as  we  had  in  the  age  of  Elizabeth,  nor  yet 
a  culture  and  a  force  of  learning  and  criticism,  such  as 
were  to  be  found  in  Germany.  Therefore  the  creative 
power  of  poetry  wanted,  for  success  in  the  highest  sense, 
materials  and  a  basis  ;  a  thorough  interpretation  of  the 
world  was  necessarily  denied  to  it. — Essays  m  Criticism. 

OUR     1S00-1S30. 

We  in  England,  in  our  great  burst  of  literature  during 
the  first  thirty  years  of  the  present  century,  had  no  mani- 
festation of  the  modern  spirit,  as  this  spirit  manifests 
itself  in  Goethe's  works  or  Heine's.  And  the  reason  is 
not  far  to  seek.  We  had  neither  the  German  wealth  of 
ideas,  nor  the  French  enthusiasm  for  applying  ideas. 
There  reigned  in  the  mass  of  the  nation  that  inveterate 
inaccessibility  to  ideas,  that  Philistinism, ^to  use  the 
German  nickname, — which  reacts  even  on  the  individual 
genius  that  is  exempt  from  it.  In  our  greatest  literary 
epoch,  that  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  English  society  at 
large  was  accessible  to  ideas,  was  permeated  by  them, 
was  vivified  by  them,  to  a  degree  which  has  never  been 
reached  in  England  since.  Hence  the  unique  greatness 
in  English  literature  of  Shakspeare  and  his  contempo- 
raries. They  were  powerfully  upheld  by  the  intellectual 
life  of  their  nation  ;  they  applied  freely  in  literature  the 
then  modern  ideas, — the  ideas  of  the  Renascence  and 


Our  1800-1830.  43 

the  Reformation.  A  few  years  afterwards,  the  great 
English  middle  class,  the  kernel  of  the  nation,  the  class 
whose  intelligent  sympathy  had  upheld  a  Shakspeare, 
entered  the  prison  of  Puritanism,  and  had  the  key  turned 
upon  its  spirit  there  for  two  hundred  years.  He  enlargeth 
a  nation,  says  Job,  and  straiteneth  it  again. 

In  the  literary  movement  of  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  signal  attempt  to  apply  freely  the 
modern  spirit  was  made  in  England  by  two  members  of 
the  aristocratic  class,  Byron  and  Shelley.  Aristocracies 
are,  as  such,  naturally  impenetrable  by  ideas  ;  but  their 
individual  members  have  a  high  courage  and  a  turn  for 
breaking  bounds  ;  and  a  man  of  genius,  who  is  the  born 
child  of  the  idea,  happening  to  be  born  in  the  aristocratic 
ranks,  chafes  against  the  obstacles  which  prevent  him 
from  freely  developing  it.  But  Byron  and  Shelley  did 
not  succeed  in  their  attempt  freely  to  apply  the  modern 
spirit  in  English  literature  ;  they  could  not  succeed  in 
it  ;  the  resistance  to  baffle  them,  the  want  of  intelligent 
sympathy  to  guide  and  uphold  them,  were  too  great. 
Their  literary  creation,  compared  with  the  literary  crea- 
tion of  Shakspeare  and  Spenser,  compared  with  the 
literary  creation  of  Goethe  and  Heine,  is  a  failure.  The 
best  literary  creation  of  that  time  in  England  proceeded 
from  men  who  did  not  make  the  same  bold  attempt  as 
Byron  and  Shelley.  What,  in  fact,  was  the  career  of  the 
chief  English  men  of  letters,  their  contemporaries  ?   The 


44  Liter ahire. 


greatest  of  them,  Wordsworth,  retired  (in  Middle-Age 
phrase)  into  a  monastery.  I  mean,  he  plunged  himself 
in  the  inward  life,  he  voluntarily  cut  himself  off  from  the 
modern  spirit.  Coleridge  took  to  opium.  Scott  became 
the  historiographer  royal  of  feudalism,  Keats  passion- 
ately gave  himself  up  to  a  sensuous  genius,  to  his  faculty 
for  interpreting  nature  ;  and  he  died  of  consumption  at 
twenty-five.  Wordsworth,  Scott,  and  Keats  have  left 
admirable  works  ;  far  more  solid  and  complete  works 
than  those  which  Byron  and  Shelley  have  left.  But  their 
works  have  this  defect ; — they  do  not  belong  to  that  which 
is  the  main  current  of  the  literature  of  modern  epochs, 
they  do  not  apply  modern  ideas  to  life  ;  they  constitute, 
therefore,  minor  currents,  and  all  other  literary  work  of 
our  day,  however  popular,  which  has  the  same  defect, 
also  constitutes  but  a  minor  current.  Byron  and  Shelley 
will  long  be  remembered,  long  after  the  inadequacy  of 
their  actual  work  is  clearly  recognised,  for  their  passion- 
ate, their  Titanic  effort  to  flow  in  the  main  stream  of 
modern  literature ;  their  names  will  be  greater  than 
their  writings  \  stat  tnagni  tiominis  umbra. — Essays  in 
Criticism. 

PRODIGALITY  OF  NATURE. 

What  a  spendthrift,  one  is  tempted  to  cry,  is  Nature  ! 
With  what  prodigality,  in  the  march  of  generations,  she 
employs  human  power,  content  to  gather  almost  always 


Prodigality  of  Nature.  45 

little  result  from  it,  sometimes  none  !  Look  at  Byron, 
that  Byron  whom  the  present  generation  of  Englishmen 
are  forgetting  ;  Byron,  the  greatest  natural  force,  the 
greatest  elementary  power,  I  cannot  but  think,  which  has 
appeared  in  our  literature  since  Shakspeare.  And  what 
became  of  this  wonderful  production  of  nature  ?  He 
shattered  himself,  he  inevitably  shattered  himself  to 
pieces,  against  the  huge,  black,  cloud-topped,  interminable 
precipice  of  British  Philistinism.  But  Byron,  it  may  be 
said,  was  eminent  only  by  his  genius,  only  by  his  inborn 
force  and  fire  ;  he  had  not  the  intellectual  equipment  of 
a  supreme  modern  poet ;  except  for  his  genius  he  was 
an  ordinary  nineteenth -century  English  gentleman,  with 
little  culture  and  with  no  ideas.  Well,  then,  look  at  Heine. 
Heine  had  all  the  culture  of  Germany  ;  in  his  head  fer- 
mented all  the  ideas  of  modern  Europe.  And  what  have 
we  got  from  Heine  ?  A  half-result,  for  want  of  moral 
balance,  and  of  nobleness  of  soul  and  character.  That 
is  what  I  say  ;  there  is  so  much  power,  so  many  seem 
able  to  run  well,  so  many  give  promise  of  running  well ; 
— so  few  reach  the  goal,  so  few  are  chosen.  Ma?ty  are 
called,  few  chosen. — Essays  in  Criticism. 

SYMBOLISM  IN  POETRY. 

The  first  part  of  '  Faust '  is  undoubtedly  Goethe's 
best  work  in  poetry.  And  it  is  so  for  the  plain  reason 
that,  except  his  '  Gedichte,'  it  is  his  most  straightforward 


46  Literature. 


work  in  poetry.  Mr.  Hayward's  is  the  best  of  the  trans- 
lations of  '  Faust '  for  the  same  reason, — because  it  is  the 
most  straightforward.  To  be  simple  and  straightforward 
is,  as  Milton  saw  and  said,  of  the  essence  of  first-rate 
poetry.  All  that  M.  Scherer  says  of  the  ruinousness,  to 
a  poet,  of  '  symbols,  hieroglyphics,  mystifications,'  is  just. 
When  Mr.  Carlyle  praises  the  '  Helena  '  for  being  '  not  a 
type  of  one  thing,  but  a  vague,  fluctuating,  fitful  adum- 
bration of  many,' he  praises  it  for  what  is  in  truth  its  fatal 
defect.  The '  Mahrchen,' again,  on  which  Mr.  Carlyle  heaps 
such  praise,  calling  it  '  one  of  the  notablest  performances 
produced  for  the  last  thousand  years,'  a  performance  '  in 
such  a  style  of  grandeur  and  celestial  brilliancy  and  life  as 
the  Western  imagination  has  not  elsewhere  reached  ; '  the 
'  Mahrchen,'  woven  throughout  of  '  symbol,  hieroglyphic, 
mystification,'  is  by  that  very  reason  a  piece  of  solemn 
inanity,  on  which  a  man  of  Goethe's  powers  could  never 
have  wasted  his  time,  but  for  his  lot  having  been  cast  in 
a  nation  which  has  never  lived. — Mixed  Essays. 

GOETHE S   CORPORALISM. 

Let  us  remark  that  it  was  not '  snobbishness '  in  Goethe, 
as  M.  Scherer  harshly  calls  it,  which  made  him  take  so 
seriously  the  potentate  who  loved  Lola  Montes  ;  it  was 
simply  his  German  '  corporalism.'  A  disciplinable  and 
much-disciplined  people,  with  little  humour,  and  without 
the  experience  of  a  great  national  life,  regards  its  official 


Goethe  s  Corporatism.  47 

authorities  in  this  devout  and  awe-struck  way.  To  a 
German  it  seems  profane  and  Ucentious  to  smile  at  his 
Dogberry.  He  takes  Dogberry  seriously  and  solemnly, 
takes  him  at  his  own  valuation. — Mixed  Essays. 

SIMPLICITY  AND    '  SIMPLESSE: 

French  criticism,  richer  in  its  vocabulary  than  ours,  has 
invented  a  useful  word  to  distinguish  the  semblance 
of  simplicity  from  the  real  quality.  The  real  quality 
it  calls  shnplicite^  the  semblance  simplesse.  The  one  is 
natural  simplicity,  the  other  is  artificial  simplicity.  What 
is  called  simplicity  in  the  productions  of  a  genius  essen- 
tially not  simple,  is  in  truth  simplesse.  The  two  are  dis- 
tinguishable from  one  another  the  moment  they  appear 
in  company.  For  instance,  let  us  take  the  opening  of 
the  narrative  in  Wordsworth's  '  Michael : ' 

Upon  the  forest-side  in  Grasmere  Vale 
There  dwelt  a  shepherd,  Michael  was  his  name ; 
An  old  man,  stout  of  heart,  and  strong  of  limb. 
His  bodily  frame  had  been  from  youth  to  age 
Of  an  unusual  strength  ;  his  mind  was  keen, 
Intense,  and  frugal,  apt  for  all  affairs  ; 
And  in  his  shepherd's  calling  he  was  prompt 
And  watchful  more  than  ordinar)'  men. 

Now  let  us  take  the  opening  of  the  narrative  in  Mr. 
Tennyson's  '  Dora  : ' 

With  Farmer  Allan  at  the  farm  abode 
William  and  Dora.     William  was  his  son. 
And  she  his  niece.     He  often  look'd  at  them. 
And  often  thought,  '  I'll  make  them  man  and  wife  ' 


48  Literature. 

The  simplicity  of  the  first  of  these  passages  is  si77iplicite  \ 
that  of  the  second,  shnplesse. — Last  Words  on  Translating 
Homer. 

HYMNS,  ENGLISH  AND   GERMAN. 

Our  German  kinsmen  and  we  are  the  great  people  for 
hymns.  The  Germans  are  very  proud  of  their  hymns, 
and  we  are  very  proud  of  ours  ;  but  it  is  hard  to  say 
which  of  the  two,  the  German  hymn-book  or  ours,  has 
least  poetical  worth  in  itself,  or  does  least  to  prove 
genuine  poetical  power  in  the  people  producing  it.  I 
have  not  a  word  to  say  against  Sir  Roundell  Palmer's 
choice  and  arrangement  of  materials  for  his  '  Book  of 
Praise  ; '  I  am  content  to  put  them  on  a  level  (and  that 
is  giving  them  the  highest  possible  rank)  with  Mr.  Pal- 
grave's  choice  and  arrangement  of  materials  for  his 
*  Golden  Treasury ; '  but  yet  no  sound  critic  can  doubt 
that,  so  far  as  poetry  is  concerned,  while  the  'Golden 
Treasury '  is  a  monument  of  a  nation's  strength,  the  '  Book 
of  Praise  '  is  a  monument  of  a  nation's  weakness.  Only 
the  German  race,  with  its  want  of  quick  instinctive  tact, 
of  delicate,  sure  perception,  could  have  invented  the 
hymn  as  the  Germans  and  we  have  it ;  and  our  non- 
German  turn  for  style, — style,  of  which  the  very  essence 
is  a  certain  happy  fineness  and  truth  of  poetical  percep- 
tion,— could  not  but  desert  us  when  our  German  nature 
carried  us  into  a  kind  of  composition  which  can  please 


HymnSy  English  and  German.         49 


only  when  the  perception  is  somewhat  blunt.  Scarcely 
any  one  of  us  ever  judges  our  hymns  fairly,  because 
works  of  this  kind  have  two  sides, — their  side  for  religion 
and  their  side  for  poetry.  Everything  which  has  helped 
a  man  in  his  religious  life,  everything  which  associates 
itself  in  his  mind  with  the  growth  of  that  life,  is  beautiful 
and  venerable  to  him  :  in  this  way,  productions  of  little 
or  no  poetical  value,  like  the  German  hymns  and  ours, 
may  come  to  be  regarded  as  very  precious.  Their  worth 
in  this  sense,  as  means  by  which  we  have  been  edified,  I 
do  not  for  a  moment  hold  cheap  ;  but  there  is  an  edifica- 
tion proper  to  all  our  stages  of  development,  the  highest 
as  well  as  the  lowest,  and  it  is  for  man  to  press  on  to- 
wards the  highest  stages  of  his  development,  with  the 
certainty  that  for  those  stages,  too,  means  of  edification 
will  not  be  found  wanting.  Now  certainly  it  is  a  higher 
state  of  development  when  our  poetical  perception  is 
keen  than  when  it  is  blunt. — Shidy  of  Celtic  Literature. 

HYMNS  AGAIN. 

Hymns,  such  as  we  know  them,  are  a  sort  of  composition 
which  I  do  not  at  all  admire.  I  freely  say  so  now,  as  I 
have  often  said  it  before.  I  regret  their  prevalence  and 
popularity  amongst  us.  Taking  man  in  his  totality  and 
in  the  long  run,  bad  music  and  bad  poetry,  to  whatever 
good  and  useful  purposes  a  man  may  often  manage  to 
turn  them,  are  in  themselves  mischievous  and  deteriorating 

E 


50  Lit  ei'at  lire. 


to  him.  Somewhere  and  somehow,  and  at  some  time  or 
other,  he  has  to  pay  a  penalty  and  to  suffer  a  loss  for 
taking  delight  in  them.  It  is  bad  for  people  to  hear  such 
words  and  such  a  tune  as  the  words  or  tune  of,  O  happy 
place  !  when  shall  I  be,  my  God,  with  thee,  to  see  thy  face  "i 
— worse  for  them  to  take  pleasure  in  it.  And  the  time 
will  come,  I  hope,  when  we  shall  feel  the  unsatisfactori- 
ness  of  our  present  hymns,  and  they  will  disappear  from 
our  religious  services.  But  that  time  has  not  come  yet, 
and  will  not  be  brought  about  soon  or  suddenly. — Last 
Essays. 

LATIN  HYMNS  AND   THE    'IMITATION: 

It  is  worth  noticing  that  in  our  Indo-European  Christen- 
dom the  best  productions  of  the  pure  religious  sentiment 
have  been  works  like  the  'Imitation,'  the  'Dies  Irse,'  the 
'Stabat  Mater,' — works  clothing  themselves  in  the  Middle- 
Age  Latin,  the  genuine  native  voice  of  none  of  us.  The 
perfection  of  their  kind,  but  that  kind  not  perfectly 
legitimate,  they  take  a  language  not  perfectly  legitimate  ; 
as  if  to  show,  that  when  mankind's  Semitic  age  is  once 
passed,  the  age  which  produced  the  great  incomparable 
monuments  of  the  pure  religious  sentiment,  the  books  of 
Job  and  Isaiah,  the  Psalms, — works  truly  to  be  called 
inspired,  because  the  same  divine  power  which  worked 
in  those  who  produced  them  works  no  longer, — as  if  to 
show  us,  that,  after  this  primitive  age,  we  Indo-Europeans 


Latin.  Hymns  and  the  '  Imitation.'       5  i 

must  feel  these  works  without  attempting  to  remake 
them  ;  and  that  our  poetry,  if  it  tries  to  make  itself  simply 
the  organ  of  the  religious  sentiment,  leaves  the  true 
course,  and  must  conceal  this  by  not  speaking  a  living 
language.  The  moment  it  speaks  a  living  language,  and 
still  makes  itself  the  organ  of  the  religious  sentiment  only, 
as  in  the  German  and  English  hymns,  it  betrays  weak- 
ness ; — the  weakness  of  all  false  tendency. — Study  of 
Celtic  Literature. 

GERMAN  STYLE. 

Englishmen  and  Frenchmen  have  alike  the  same  instinc- 
tive sense  rebelling  against  what  is  verbose,  ponderous, 
roundabout,  inane, — in  one  word,  niais  or  silly,  -  in 
German  literature. 

This  ground  of  sympathy  between  Englishmen  and 
Frenchmen  has  not  been  enough  remarked,  but  it  is  a 
very  real  one.  They  owe  it  to  their  having  alike  had  a 
long- continued  national  life,  a  long-continued  literary 
activity,  such  as  no  other  modern  nation  has  had.  This 
course  of  practical  experience  does  of  itself  beget  a  turn 
for  directness  and  clearness  of  speech,  a  dislike  for  futility 
and  fumbling,  such  as  without  it  we  shall  rarely  find 
general.  Dr.  Wiese,  in  his  recent  useful  work  on  English 
schools,  expresses  surprise  that  the  French  language  and 
literature  should  find  more  favour  in  Teutonic  England 
than  the  German.     But  community  of  practice  is  more 

£  2 


52  Literature. 


telling  than  community  of  origin.  While  English  and 
French  are  printed  alike,  and  while  an  English  and  a 
French  sentence  each  of  them  says  what  it  has  to  say  in 
the  same  direct  fashion,  a  German  newspaper  is  still 
printed  in  black  letter,  and  a  German  sentence  is  framed 
in  the  style  of  this  which  we  quote  from  Dr.  Wiese  him- 
self :  '  Die  Englander  einer  grossen,  in  alien  Erdtheilen 
eine  Achtung  gebietende  Stellung  einnehmenden  Nation 
angehoren  ! '  The  Italians  are  a  Latin  race,  with  a  clear- 
cut  language  ;  but  much  of  their  modern  prose  has  all 
the  circuitousness  and  slowness  of  the  German,  and  from 
the  same  cause  :  the  want  of  the  pressure  of  a  great 
national  life,  with  its  practical  discipline,  its  ever-active 
traditions  ;  its  literature,  for  centuries  past,  powerful  and 
incessant.  England  has  these  in  common  with  France. 
— Mixed  Essays. 

BLENDING   OF  TEMPERAMENTS. 

Just  what  constitutes  special  power  and  genius  in  a  man 
seems  often  to  be  his  blending,  with  the  basis  of  his 
national  temperament,  some  additional  gift  or  grace  not 
proper  to  that  temperament.  Shakspeare's  greatness  is 
thus  in  his  blending  an  openness  and  flexibility  of  spirit, 
not  English,  with  the  English  basis  ;  Addison's,  in  his 
blending  a  moderation  and  delicacy,  not  English,  with 
the  English  basis  ;  Burke's,  in  his  blending  a  largeness  of 
view  and  richness  of  thought,  not  English,  with  the  Eng- 


Blending  of  Teinperaments.  5  '• 


o 


lish  basis.  In  Germany  itself,  in  the  same  way,  the 
greatness  of  their  great  Frederic  Hes  in  his  blending  a 
rapidity  and  clearness,  not  German,  with  the  German 
basis  ;  the  greatness  of  Goethe  in  his  blending  a  love  of 
form,  nobility,  and  dignity, — the  grand  style, — with  the 
German  basis.  But  the  quick,  sure,  instinctive  perception 
of  the  incongruous  and  absurd  not  even  genius  seems  to 
give  in  Germany  ;  at  least,  I  can  think  of  only  one 
German  of  genius,  Lessing  (for  Heine  was  a  Jew,  and  the 
Jewish  temperament  is  quite  another  thing  from  the 
German),  who  shows  it  in  an  eminent  degree. — Study  of 
Celtic  Literature. 

OUR  ENGLISH  MIXTURE. 

It  is  not  a  sheer  advantage  to  have  several  strings  to 
one's  bow  !  if  we  had  been  all  German,  we  might  have 
had  the  science  of  Germany  ;  if  we  had  been  all  Celtic, 
we  might  have  been  popular  and  agreeable  ;  if  we  had 
been  all  Latinised,  we  might  have  governed  Ireland  as 
the  French  govern  Alsace,  without  getting  ourselves  de- 
tested. But  now  we  have  Germanism  enough  to  make 
us  Philistines,  and  Latinised  Normanism  enough  to  make 
us  imperious,  and  Celtism  enough  to  make  us  self-con- 
scious and  awkward  ;  but  German  fidelity  to  Nature,  and 
Latin  precision  and  clear  reason,  and  Celtic  quick- witted- 
ness  and  spiritiiality,  we  fall  shott  of.  Nay,  perhaps,  if  we 
are  doomed  to  perish  (Heaven  avert  the   omen  !),  we 


54  Literahii'e. 


shall  perish  by  our  Celtism,  by  our  self-will  and  want  of 
patience  with  ideas,  our  inability  to  see  the  way  the 
world  is  going  ;  and  yet  those  very  Celts,  by  our  affinity 
with  whom  we  are  perishing,  will  be  hating  and  upbraid- 
ing us  all  the  time. — Study  of  Celtic  Literature. 

ENGLISH  PROSE  AND   POETRY. 

Poetry,  no  doubt,  is  more  excellent  in  itself  than  prose. 
In  poetry  man  finds  the  highest  and  most  beautiful  ex- 
pression of  that  which  is  in  him.  We  had  a  far  better 
poetry  than  the  poetry  of  the  eighteenth  century  before 
that  century  arrived,  we  have  had  abetter  since  it  departed. 
Like  the  Greeks,  and  unlike  the  French,  we  can  point  to 
an  age  of  poetry  anterior  to  our  age  of  prose,  eclipsing 
our  age  of  prose  in  glory,  and  fixing  the  future  character 
and  conditions  of  our  literature.  We  do  well  to  place 
our  pride  in  the  Elizabethan  age  and  Shakspeare,  as  the 
Greeks  placed  theirs  in  Homer.  We  did  well  to  return 
in  the  present  century  to  the  poetry  of  that  older  age 
for  illumination  and  inspiration,  and  to  put  aside,  in  a 
great  measure,  the  poetry  and  poets  intervening  between 
Milton  and  Wordsworth.  Milton,  in  whom  our  great 
poetic  age  expired,  was  the  last  of  the  immortals.  The 
glory  of  English  literature  is  in  poetry,  and  in  poetry  the 
strength  of  the  eighteenth  century  does  not  lie. 

Nevertheless,   the   eighteenth  century,  accomplished 
for  us  an  immense  literary  progress,  and  its  very  short- 


English  Prose  and  Poetry.  5  5 

comings  in  poetry  were  an  instrument  to  that  progress, 
and  served  it.  The  example  of  Germany  may  show  us 
what  a  nation  loses  from  having  no  prose  style.  The 
practical  genius  of  our  people  could  not  but  urge  irre- 
sistibly to  the  production  of  a  real  prose  style,  because 
for  the  purposes  of  modern  life  the  old  English  prose, 
the  prose  of  Milton  and  Taylor,  is  cumbersome,  unavail- 
able, impossible.  A  style  of  regularity,  uniformity,  preci- 
sion, balance,  was  wanted.  These  are  the  qualities  of  a 
serviceable  prose  style.  Poetry  has  a  different  logic,  as 
Coleridge  said,  from  prose  ;  poetical  style  follows  another 
law  of  evolution  than  the  style  of  prose.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  that  a  style  of  regularity,  uniformity,  precision, 
balance,  will  acquire  a  yet  stronger  hold  upon  the  mind 
of  a  nation,  if  it  is  adopted  in  poetry  as  well  as  in  prose, 
and  so  comes  to  govern  both.  This  is  what  happened 
in  France.  To  the  practical,  modern,  and  social  genius 
of  the  French,  a  true  prose  was  indispensable.  They 
produced  one  of  conspicuous  excellence, — a  prose  marked 
in  the  highest  degree  by  the  qualities  of  regularity,  unifor- 
mity, precision,  balance.  With  little  opposition  from  any 
deep-seated  and  imperious  poetic  instincts,  the  French 
made  their  poetry  also  conform  to  the  law  which  was 
moulding  their  prose.  French  poetry  became  marked  with 
the  qualities  of  regularity,  uniformity,  precision,  balance. 
This  may  have  been  bad  for  French  poetry,  but  it  was  good 
for  French  prose.     It  heightened  the  perfection  with  which 


56  Literatuj^e. 


those  qualities,  the  true  qualities  of  prose,  were  impressed 
upon  it.     When  England,  at  the  Restoration,  desired  a 
modern  prose,  and  began  to  create  it,  our  writers  turned 
naturally  to  French  literature,  which  had  just  accomplished 
the  very  prdcess  which  engaged  them.    The  King's  acute- 
ness  and  taste  helped.    Indeed,  to  the  admission  of  French 
influence  of  all  kinds,  Charles  the  Second's  character  and 
that  of  his  court  were  but  too  favourable.     Rut  the  influ- 
ence of  the  French  writers  was  at  that  moment  on  the 
whole   fortunate,   and  seconded  what  was   a  vital   and 
necessary  effort  in  our  literature.     Our  literature  required 
a  prose  which  conformed  to  the  true  law  of  prose  ;  and 
that  it  might  acquire  this  the  more  surely,  it  compelled 
poetry,  as  in  France,  to  conform  itself  to  the  law  of  prose 
likewise.     The  classic  verse  of  French  poetry  was  the 
Alexandrine,  a   measure  favourable  to  the  qualities   of 
regularity,   uniformity,   precision,   balance.     Gradually  a 
measure  favourable  to  those  very  same   qualities, — the 
ten-syllable   couplet, — established   itself   as   the    classic 
verse  of  England,  until  in  the  eighteenth  century  it  had 
b  come  the  ruling  form  of  our  poetry.     Poetry,  or  rather 
the  use  of  verse,  entered  in  a  remarkable  degree,  during 
that  century,  into  the  whole  of  the  daily  life  of  the  civi- 
lised classes  ;  and  the  poetry  of  the  century  was  a  per- 
petual school  of  the  qualities  requisite  for  a  good  prose, 
the  qualities  of  regularity,  uniformity,  precision,  balance. 
This  may  have  been  of  no  great  service  to  English  poetry, 


English  Prose  and  Poetry.  5  7 

although  to  say  that  it  has  been  of  no  service  at  all,  to 
say  that  the  eighteenth  century  has  in  no  respect  changed 
the  conditions  for  English  poetical  style,  or  that  it  has 
changed  them  for  the  worse,  would  be  untrue.  But  it 
was  undeniably  of  signal  service  to  that  which  was  the 
great  want  and  work  of  the  hour,  English  prose. 

Do  not  let  us,  therefore,  hastily  despise  Johnson  and 
his  century  for  their  defective  poetry  and  criticism  of 
poetry.  True,  Johnson  is  capable  of  saying  :  '  Surely  no 
man  could  have  fancied  that  he  read  Lycidas  with  plea- 
sure had  he  not  known  the  author  ! '  True,  he  is  capable 
of  maintaining  that  'the  description  of  the  temple  in 
Congreve's  "  Mourning  Bride "  was  the  finest  poetical 
passage  he  had  ever  read — he  recollected  none  in  Shak- 
speare  equal  to  it'  But  we  are  to  conceive  of  Johnson 
and  of  his  century  as  having  a  special  task  committed  to 
them,  the  establishment  of  English  prose  ;  and  as  capable 
of  being  warped  and  narrowed  in  their  judgments  of 
poetry  by 'this  exclusive  task.  Such  is  the  common 
course  and  law  of  progress  ;  one  thing  is  done  at  a  time, 
and  other  things  are  sacrificed  to  it.  We  must  be  thank- 
ful for  the  thing  done,  if  it  is  valuable,  and  we  must  put 
up  with  the  temporary  sacrifice  of  other  things  to  this 
one. — Preface  to  Johnson's  ''Six  Chief  Lives.' 


58  Literature. 


BURKE, 

It  is  the  fashion  to  treat  Burke's  writings  on  the  French 
Revolution  as  superannuated  and  proved  wrong  by  the 
event ;  as  the  eloquent  but  unphilosophical  tirades  of 
bigotry  and  prejudice.  I  will  not  deny  that  they  are 
often  disfigured  by  the  violence  and  passion  of  the 
moment,  and  that  in  some  directions  Burke's  view  was 
bounded,  and  his  observation  therefore  at  fault.  But  on 
the  whole,  and  for  those  who  can  make  the  needful 
corrections,  what  distinguishes  these  writings  is  their 
profound,  permanent,  fruitful,  philosophical  truth.  They 
contain  the  true  philosophy  of  an  epoch  of  concentration, 
dissipate  the  heavy  atmosphere  which  its  own  nature  is 
apt  to  engender  round  it,  and  make  its  resistance  rational 
instead  of  mechanical. 

But  Burke  is  so  great  because,  almost  alone  in 
England,  he  brings  thought  to  bear  upon  politics,  he 
saturates  politics  with  thought.  It  is  his  accident  that 
his  ideas  were  at  the  service  of  an  epoch  of  concentration, 
not  of  an  epoch  of  expansion  ;  it  is  his  characteristic  that 
he  so  lived  by  ideas,  and  had  such  a  source  of  them  well- 
ing up  within  him,  that  he  could  float  even  an  epoch  of 
concentration  and  English  Tory  politics  with  them.  It 
does  not  hurt  him  that  Dr.  Price  and  the  Liberals  were 
enraged  with  him ;  it  does  not  even  hurt  him  that  George 
the  Third  and  the  Tories  were  enchanted  with  him.    His 


Burke.  59 

greatness  is  that  he  lived  in  a  world  which  neither 
English  Liberalism  nor  English  Toryism  is  apt  to  enter  ; 
— the  world  of  ideas,  not  the  world  of  catchwords  and 
party  habits.  So  far  is  it  from  being  really  true  of  him 
that  he  '  to  party  gave  up  what  was  meant  for  mankind, 
that  at  the  very  end  of  his  fierce  struggle  with  the  French 
Revolution,  after  all  his  invectives  against  its  false  pre- 
tensions, hollowness,  and  madness,  with  his  sincere  con- 
viction of  its  mischievousness,  he  can  close  a  memoran- 
dum on  the  best  means  of  combating  it,  some  of  the  last 
pages  he  ever  wrote, — the  '  Thoughts  on  French  Affairs,' 
in  December  1791, — with  these  striking  words  : 

'  The  evil  is  stated,  in  my  opinion,  as  it  exists.  The 
remedy  must  be  where  power,  wisdom,  and  information, 
I  hope,  are  more  united  with  good  intentions  than  they 
can  be  with  me.  I  have  done  with  this  subject,  I  believe, 
for  ever.  It  has  given  me  many  anxious  moments  for 
the  last  two  years.  If  a  great  change  is  to  he  made  hi 
human  affair s,  the  minds  of  men  will  be  fitted  to  it ;  the 
general  opinions  and  feelings  will  draw  that  way.  Every 
fear,  every  hope  imll  forivard  it ;  and  then  they  who  persist 
in  opposing  this  mighty  current  in  huitian  affairs,  will 
appear  rather  to  resist  the  decrees  of  Providence  itself  than 
the  mere  designs  of  men.  They  will  7iot  be  resolute  and 
firm,  but  perverse  and  obstinate.^ 

That  return  of  Burke  upon  himself  has  always  seemed 
to  me  one  of  the  finest  things  in  English  literature,  or 


6o  Literature. 


indeed  in  any  literature.  That  is  what  I  call  living  by 
ideas  :  when  one  side  of  a  question  has  long  had  your 
earnest  support,  when  all  your  feelings  are  engaged,  when 
you  hear  all  round  you  no  language  but  one,  when  your 
party  talks  this  language  like  a  steam-engine  and  can 
imagine  no  other, — still  to  be  able  to  think,  still  to  be 
irresistibly  carried,  if  so  it  be,  by  the  current  of  thought 
to  the  opposite  side  of  the  question,  and,  like  Balaam,  to 
be  unable  to  speak  anything  but  what  the  Lord  has  put 
in  your  mouth.  I  know  nothing  more  striking,  and  I  must 
add  that  I  know  nothing  more  un-English. — Essays  in 
Criticism. 

COLERIDGE. 

Coleridge  had  less  delicacy  and  penetration  than  Jou- 
bert,  but  more  richness  and  power  ;  his  production, 
though  far  inferior  to  what  his  nature  at  first  seemed  to 
promise,  was  abundant  and  varied.  Yet  in  all  his  pro- 
duction how  much  is  there  to  dissatisfy  us  !  How  many 
reserves  must  be  made  in  praising  either  his  poetry,  or 
his  criticism,  or  his  philosophy!  How  little  either  of 
his  poetry,  or  of  his  criticism,  or  of  his  philosophy,  can 
we  expect  permanently  to  stand  !  But  that  which  will 
stand  of  Coleridge  is  this  :  the  stimulus  of  his  continual 
effort, — not  a  moral  effort,  for  he  had  no  morals, — but  of 
his  continual  instinctive  effort,  crowned  often  with  rich 
success,  to  get  at  and  to  lay  bare  the  real  truth  of  his 


Coleridge.  6 1 

matter  in  hand,  whether  that  matter  were  literary,  or  phi- 
losophical, or  political,  or  religious  ;  and  this  in  a  country 
where  at  that  moment  such  an  effort  was  almost  un- 
known ;  where  the  most  powerful  minds  threw  themselves 
upon  poetry,  which  conveys  truth,  indeed,  but  conveys 
it  indirectly ;  and  where  ordinary  minds  were  so  habituated 
to  do  without  thinking  altogether,  to  regard  considera- 
tions of  established  routine  and  practical  convenience  as 
paramount,  that  any  attempt  to  introduce  within  the 
domain  of  these  the  disturbing  element  of  thought,  they 
were  prompt  to  resent  as  an  outrage.  Coleridge's  great 
usefulness  lay  in  his  supplying  in  England,  for  many 
years  and  under  critical  circumstances,  by  the  spectacle 
of  this  effort  of  his,  a  stimulus  to  all  minds  capable  of 
profiting  by  it  in  the  generation  which  grew  up  around 
him.  His  action  will  still  be  felt  as  long  as  the  need  for 
it  continues.  When,  with  the  cessation  of  the  need,  the 
action  too  has  ceased,  Coleridge's  memory,  in  spite  of 
the  disesteem, — nay,  repugnance, — which  his  character 
may  and  must  inspire,  will  yet  for  ever  remain  invested 
with  that  interest  and  gratitude  which  invests  the  memory 
of  founders. — Essays  in  Criticism. 

you  BERT  AND  JEFFREY. 

JouBERT  was  not  famous  while  he  lived,  and  he  will  not 
be  famous  now  that  he  is  dead.  But,  before  we  pity  him 
for  this,  let  us  be  sure  what  we  mean,  in  literature,  by 


62  Literature. 


famous.  There  are  the  famous  men  of  genius  in  litera- 
ture,— the  Homers,  Dantes,  Shakspeares  ;  of  them  we 
need  not  speak  ;  their  praise  is  for  ever  and  ever.  Then 
there  are  the  famous  men  of  ability  in  literature  :  their 
praise  is  in  their  own  generation.  And  what  makes  this 
difference  ?  The  work  of  the  two  orders  of  men  is  at 
bottom  the  same, — a  criticism  of  life.  The  end  and 
aim  of  all  literature,  if  one  considers  it  attentively,  is,  in 
truth,  nothing  but  that.  But  the  criticism  which  the  men 
of  genius  pass  upon  human  life  is  permanently  acceptable 
to  mankind  ;  the  criticism  which  the  men  of  ability  pass 
upon  human  life  is  transitorily  acceptable.  Between 
Shakspeare's  criticism  of  human  life  and  Scribe's  the 
difference  is  there  ! — the  one  is  permanently  acceptable, 
the  other  transitorily.  Whence  then,  I  repeat,  this  differ- 
ence ?  It  is  that  the  acceptableness  of  Shakspeare's 
criticism  depends  upon  its  inherent  truth  :  the  accept- 
ableness of  Scribe's  upon  its  suiting  itself,  by  its  subject- 
matter,  ideas,  mode  of  treatment,  to  the  taste  of  the 
generation  that  hears  it.  But  the  taste  and  ideas  of  one 
generation  are  not  those  of  the  next.  This  next  gene- 
ration in  its  turn  arrives  ; — first  its  sharpshooters,  its 
quick-witted,  audacious  light  troops  ;  then  the  elephantine 
main  body.  The  imposing  array  of  its  predecessor  it 
confidently  assails,  riddles  it  with  bullets,  passes  over  its 
body.  It  goes  hard  then  with  many  once  popular  re- 
putations, with  many  authorities  once  oracular.     Only 


youbert  and  ycffrey.  6'X, 


two  kinds  of  authors  are  safe  in  the  general  havoc.  The 
first  kind  are  the  great  abounding  fountains  of  truth, 
whose  criticism  of  Hfe  is  a  source  of  illumination  and  joy 
to  the  whole  human  race  for  ever, — the  Homers,  the 
Shakspeares.  These  are  the  sacred  personages,  whom  all 
civilised  warfare  respects.  The  second  are  those  whom 
the  out-skirmishers  of  the  new  generation,  its  forerunners, 
— quick-"'' t-ted  soldiers,  as  I  have  said,  the  select  of  the 
army,-  itcognise,  though  the  bulk  of  their  comrades  be- 
hind might  not,  as  of  the  same  family  and  character  with 
the  sacred  personages,  exercising  like  them  an  immortal 
function,  and  like  them  inspiring  a  permanent  interest. 
They  snatch  them  up,  and  set  them  in  a  place  of  shelter, 
where  the  on-coming  multitude  may  not  overwhelm 
them.  These  are  the  Jouberts.  They  will  never,  like  the 
Shakspeares,  command  the  homage  of  the  multitude  ;  but 
they  are  safe  ;  the  multitude  will  not  trample  them  down. 
Except  these  two  kinds,  no  author  is  safe.  Let  us  con- 
sider, for  example,  Joubert's  famous  contemporary.  Lord 
Jeffrey.  All  his  vivacity  and  accomplishment  avail  him 
nothing  ;  of  the  true  critic  he  had  in  an  eminent  degree 
no  quality,  except  one,— curiosity.  Curiosity  he  had,  but 
he  had  no  gift  for  truth  ;  he  cannot  illuminate  and  rejoice 
us  ;  no  intelligent  out-skirmisher  of  the  new  generation 
cares  about  him,  cares  to  put  him  in  safety;  at  this 
moment  we  are  all  passing  over  his  body.  Let  us  con- 
sider a  greater  than  Jeffrey,  a  critic  whose  reputation  still 


64  Litei'atm^e. 


stands  firm, — will  stand,  many  people  think,  for  ever, — 
the  great  apostle  of  the  Philistines,  Lord  Macaulay. 
Lord  Macaulay  was,  as  I  have  somewhere  said,  a  born 
rhetorician  ;  a  splendid  rhetorician  doubtless,  and,  beyond 
that,  an  English  rhetorician  also,  an  honest  rhetorician  ; 
still,  beyond  the  apparent  rhetorical  truth  of  things  he 
never  could  penetrate  ;  for  their  vital  truth,  for  what  the 
French  call  the  vraie  verite,  he  had  absolutely  no  organ  ; 
therefore  his  reputation,  brilliant  as  it  is,  is  not  secure. 
Rhetoric  so  good  as  his  excites  and  gives  pleasure  ;  but 
by  pleasure  alone  you  cannot  permanently  bind  men's 
spirits  to  you.  Truth  illuminates  and  gives  joy,  and  it  is 
by  the  bond  of  joy,  not  of  pleasure,  that  men's  spirits  are 
indissolubly  held.  As  Lord  Macaulay's  own  generation 
dies  out,  as  a  new  generation  arrives,  without  those  ideas 
and  tendencies  of  its  predecessor  which  Lord  Macaulay 
so  deeply  shared  and  so  happily  satisfied,  will  he  give  the 
same  pleasure?  and,  if  he  ceases  to  give  this,  has  he 
enough  of  light  in  him  to  make  him  last  ?  Pleasure  tlie 
new  generation  will  get  from  its  own  novel  ideas  and 
tendencies  ;  but  light  is  another  and  a  rarer  thing,  and 
must  be  treasured  wherever  it  can  be  found.  Will  Mac- 
aulay be  saved,  in  the  sweep  and  pressure  of  time,  for 
liis  light's  sake,  as  Johnson  has  already  been  saved  by 
two  generations,  Joubert  by  one  ?  I  think  it  very  doubt  • 
ful.  But,  for  a  spirit  of  any  delicacy  and  dignity,  what  a 
fate,  if  he  could  foresee  it  !  to  be  an  oracle  for  one  gene- 


youbert  and  Jeffrey.  65 

ration,  and  then  of  little  or  no  account  for  ever.  How 
far  better,  to  pass  with  scant  notice  through  one's  own 
generation,  but  to  be  singled  out  and  preserved  by  the 
very  iconoclasts  of  the  next,  then  in  their  turn  by  those 
of  the  next,  and  so,  like  the  lamp  of  life  itself,  to  be 
handed  on  from  one  generation  to  another  in  safety  ! 
This  is  Joubert's  lot,  and  it  is  a  very  enviable  one.  The 
new  men  of  the  new  generations,  while  they  let  the  dust 
deepen  upon  a  thousand  Laharpes,  will  say  of  him  :  '  He 
lived  in  the  Philistine's  day,  in  a  place  and  time  when 
almost  every  idea  current  in  literature  had  the  mark  of 
Dagon  upon  it,  and  not  the  mark  of  the  children  of  light. 
Nay,  the  children  of  light  were  as  yet  hardly  so  much  as 
heard  of ;  the  Canaanite  was  then  in  the  land.  Still, 
there  were  even  then  a  few,  who,  nourished  on  some 
secret  tradition,  or  illumined,  perhaps,  by  a  divine  inspira- 
tion, kept  aloof  from  the  reigning  superstitions,  never 
bowed  the  knee  to  the  gods  of  Canaan  ;  and  one  of  these 
few  was  csiWedi  /o7ibert.^ — Essays  in  Criticism. 

MIDDLE-CLASS  MAC  AULA  YESE. 

'You  ask  me,'  said  Arminius,  'why  I  call  Mr.  Hepworth 
Dixon's  style  middle-class  Macaulayese.  I  call  it  Macau- 
layese  because  it  has  the  same  internal  and  external 
characteristics  as  Macaulay's  style  ;  the  external  charac- 
teristic being  a  hard  metallic  movement  with  nothing  of 
the  soft  play  of  life,  and  the  internal  characteristic  being 


66  Literature. 


a  perpetual  semblance  of  hitting  the  right  nail  on  the 
head  without  the  reality.  And  I  call  it  middle-class 
Macaulayese,  because  it  has  these  faults  without  the 
compensation  of  great  studies  and  of  conversance  with 
great  affairs,  by  which  Macaulay  partly  redeemed  them.' — 
Friendship's  Garland. 

MACAULATS  PLACE  IN  CIVILISATION. 

Human  progress  consists  in  a  continual  increase  in 
the  number  of  those,  who,  ceasing  to  live  by  the  animal 
life  alone  and  to  feel  the  pleasures  of  sense  only,  come  to 
participate  in  the  intellectual  life  also,  and  to  find  enjoy- 
ment in  the  things  of  the  mind.  The  enjoyment  is  not 
at  first  very  discriminating.  Rhetoric,  brilliant  writing, 
gives  to  such  persons  pleasure  for  its  own  sake ;  but  it 
gives  them  pleasure,  still  more,  when  it  is  employed  in 
commendation  of  a  view  of  life  which  is  on  the  whole 
theirs,  and  of  men  and  causes  with  which  they  are 
naturally  in  sympathy.  The  immense  popularity  of 
Macaulay  is  due  to  his  being  pre-eminently  fitted  to  give 
pleasure  to  all  who  are  beginning  to  feel  enjoyment  in 
the  things  of  the  mind.  It  is  said  that  the  traveller  in 
Australia,  visiting  one  settler's  hut  after  another,  finds 
again  and  again  that  the  settler's  third  book,  after  the 
Bible  and  Shakspeare,  is  some  work  by  Macaulay. 
Nothing  can  be  more  natural.  The  Bible  and  Shak- 
speare may  be  said  to  be  imposed  upon  an  Englishman  as 


Macaiday  s  Place  in  Civilisation.        67 

objects  of  his  admiration  ;  but  as  soon  as  the  common 
Enghshman,  desiring  culture,  begins  to  choose  for  him- 
self, he  chooses  Macaulay.  Macaulay's  view  of  things  is, 
on  the  whole,  the  view  of  them  which  he  feels  to  be  his 
own  also  ;  the  persons  and  causes  praised  are  those 
which  he  himself  is  disposed  to  admire  ;  the  persons  and 
causes  blamed  are  those  with  which  he  himself  is  out  of 
sympathy  ;  and  the  rhetoric  employed  to  praise  or  to 
blame  them  is  animating  and  excellent,  Macaulay  is 
thus  a  great  civiUser.  In  hundreds  of  men  he  hits  their 
nascent  taste  for  the  things  of  the  mind,  possesses  him- 
self of  it  and  stimulates  it,  draws  it  powerfully  forth  and 
confirms  it. 

But,  with  the  increasing  number  of  those  who  awake 
to  the  intellectual  life,  the  number  of  those  also  increases, 
who,  having  awoke  to  it,  go  on  with  it,  follow  where  it 
leads  them.  And  it  leads  them  to  see  that  it  is  tlieir 
business  to  learn  the  real  truth  about  the  important  men, 
and  things,  and  books,  which  interest  the  human  mind. 
For  thus  is  gradually  to  be  acquired  a  stock  of  sound 
ideas,  in  which  the  mind  will  habitually  move,  and  which 
alone  can  give  to  our  judgments  security  and  solidity. 
To  be  satisfied  with  fine  writing  about  the  object  of  one's 
study,  with  having  it  praised  or  blamed  in  accordance 
with  one's  own  likes  or  dislikes,  with  any  conventional 
treatment  of  it  whatever,  is  at  this  stage  of  growth  seen 
to  be  futile.     At  this  stage,  rhetoric,  even  when  it  is  so 


V  2 


68  Literature. 


good  as  Macaulay's,  dissatisfies.  And  the  number  of 
people  who  have  reached  this  stage  of  mental  growth  is 
constantly,  as  things  are  now,  increasing  ;  increasing  by 
the  very  same  law  of  progress  which  plants  the  beginnings 
of  mental  life  in  more  and  more  persons  who,  until  now, 
have  never  known  mental  life  at  all.  So  that  while  the 
number  of  those  who  are  delighted  with  rhetoric  such  as 
Macaulay's  is  always  increasing,  the  number  of  those 
who  are  dissatisfied  with  it  is  always  increasing  too. — 
Mixed  Essays. 

GEORGE  SANDS  NOVELS. 

Even  three  or  four  only  out  of  George  Sand's  many  books 
might  suffice  to  show  her  to  us,  if  they  were  well  chosen  ; 
let  us  say,  the  '  Lettres  d'un  Voyageui,' '  Mauprat,' '  Fran- 
cois le  Champi,'  and  a  story  which  I  was  glad  to  see  Mr. 
Myers,  in  his  appreciative  notice  of  Madame  Sand,  single 
out  for  praise, — 'Valv^dre.'  In  these  may  be  found  all 
the  principal  elements  of  their  author's  strain  :  the  cry  of 
agony  and  revolt,  the  trust  in  nature  and  beauty,  the 
aspiration  towards  a  purged  and  renewed  human  society. 
Of  George  Sand's  strain,  during  forty  years,  these  are 
the  grand  elements.  Now  it  is  one  of  them  which  appears 
most  prominently,  now  it  is  another.  The  cry  of  agony 
and  revolt  is  in  her  earlier  work  only,  and  passes  away  in 
her  later.  But  in  the  evolution  of  these  three  elements, 
— the  passion  of  agony  and  revolt,  the  consolation  from 


George  Sand's  Novels.  69 

nature  and  from  beauty,  the  ideas  of  social  renewal, — in 
the  evolution  of  these  is  George  Sand  and  George  Sand's 
life  and  power.  Through  their  evolution  her  constant 
motive  declares  and  unfolds  itself,  and  that  motive  is 
this  :  '  the  sentifnent  of  the  ideal  life,  which  is  none  other 
than  man's  normal  life  as  we  shall  one  day  knotv  it.''  This 
is  the  motive,  and  through  these  elements  is  its  evolu- 
tion ;  an  evolution  pursued,  moreover,  with  the  most 
unfailing  resolve,  the  most  absolute  sincerity. — Mixed 
Essays. 

GEORGE  SAND. 

Whether  or  not  the  number  of  George  Sand's  works, — 
always  fresh,  always  attractive,  but  poured  out  too 
lavishly  and  rapidly, — is  likely  to  prove  a  hindrance  to 
her  fame,  I  do  not  care  to  consider.  Posterity,  alarmed 
at  the  rate  at  which  its  literary  baggage  grows  upon  it, 
always  seeks  to  throw  away  as  much  as  it  can,  as 
much  as  it  dares, — everything  but  masterpieces.  But 
the  immense  vibration  of  George  Sand's  voice  upon  the 
ear  of  Europe  will  not  soon  die  away.  Her  passions  and 
her  errors  have  been  abundantly  talked  of  She  left 
them  behind  her,  and  men's  memory  of  her  will  leave 
them  behind  also.  There  will  remain  of  her  to  mankind 
the  sense  of  benefit  and  stimulus  from  the  passage  upon 
earth  of  that  large  and  frank  nature,  of  that  large  and  pure 
utte.ance, — the  large  utterajice  of  the  early  gods.     There 


70  Literature. 


will  remain  an  admiring  and  ever  widening  report  of  that 
great  and  ingenuous  soul,  simple,  affectionate,  without 
vanity,  without  pedantry,  human,  equitable,  patient,  kind. 
She  believed  herself,  she  said,  '  to  be  in  sympathy,  across 
time  and  space,  with  a  multitude  of  honest  wills  which 
interrogate  their  conscience  and  try  to  put  themselves  in 
accord  with  it.'  This  chain  of  sympathy  will  extend  more 
and  more. 

It  is  silent,  that  eloquent  voice  !  it  is  sunk,  that  noble, 
that  speaking  head !  we  sum  up,  as  we  can,  what  she 
said  to  us,  and  we  bid  her  adieu.  From  many  hearts 
in  many  lands  a  troop  of  tender  and  grateful  regrets 
converge  towards  her  humble  churchyard  in  Berry.  Let 
them  be  joined  by  these  words  of  sad  homage  from  one 
of  a  nation  which  she  esteemed,  and  which  knew  her  very 
little  and  very  ill.  Her  guiding  thought,  the  guiding 
thought  which  she  did  her  best  to  make  ours  too,  '  the 
sentiment  of  the  ideal  life,  which  is  none  other  than 
man's  normal  life  as  we  shall  one  day  know  it,'  is  in 
harmony  with  words  and  promises  familiar  to  that  sacred 
place  where  she  lies.  Exspectat  resurrectionem  mortu- 
ortwi,  et  vitam  ventiiri  scecult. — Mixed  Essays. 


The  Oxford  Movement.  71 


TFIE    OXFORD  MOVEMENT. 

Oxford,  the  Oxford  of  the  past,  has  many  faults  ;  and 
she  has  heavily  paid  for  them  in  defeat,  in  isolation,  in 
want   of  hold   upon    the   modern   world.      Yet   we   in 
Oxford,  brought  up  amidst  the  beauty  and  sweetness  of 
that  beautiful  place,  have  not  failed  to  seize  one  truth  : — 
the  truth  that  beauty  and  sweetness  are  essential  charac- 
ters of  a  complete  human  perfection.     When  I  insist  on 
this,  I  am  all  in  the  faith  and  tradition  of  Oxford.     I  say 
boldly  that  this  our  sentiment  for  beauty  and  sweetness, 
our  sentiment  against  hideousness  and  rawness,  has  been 
at   the   bottom  of  our  attachment   to  so  many  beaten 
causes,  of  our  opposition  to  so  many  triumphant  move- 
ments.    And  the  sentiment  is  true,  and  has  never  been 
wholly  defeated,   and  has  shown  its  power  even  in   its 
defeat.     We  have  not  won  our  political  battles,  we  havt, 
not  carried  our  main  points,  we  have  not  stopped  our 
adversaries'  advance,  we  have  not  marched  victoriously 
with  the  modern  world  ;  but  we  have  told  silently  ui)on 
literature  and  upon  the  mind  of  the  country,  we  have 
prepared  currents  of  feeling  which  sap  our  adversaries' 
position  when  it  seems  gained,  we  have  kept  up  our  own 
communications  with  the  future.     Look  at  the  course  of 
the  great  movement  which  shook  Oxford  to  its  centre 
some  thirty  years  ago  !     It  was  directed,  as  any  one  who 
reads  Dr.   Newman's  '  Apology '  may  see,  against  what  in 


Literature. 


one  word  may  be  called  '  Liberalism.'  Liberalism  pre- 
vailed ;  it  was  the  appointed  force  to  do  the  work  of  the 
hour  ;  it  was  necessary,  it  was  inevitable  that  it  should 
prevail.  The  Oxford  movement  was  broken,  it  failed  ; 
our  wrecks  are  scattered  on  every  shore  : —  , 

Quse  regio  in  terris  nostri  non  plena  laboris  ? 

But  what  was  it,  this  liberalism,  as  Dr.  Newman  saw  it, 
and  as  it  really  broke  the  Oxford  movement  ?  It  was 
the  great  middle-class  liberalism,  which  had  for  the 
cardinal  points  of  its  belief  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832,  and 
local  self-government,  in  politics  ;  in  the  social  sphere, 
free-trade,  unrestricted  competition,  and  the  making  of 
large  industrial  fortunes  ;  in  the  religious  sphere,  the 
Dissidence  of  Dissent  and  the  Protestantism  of  the 
Protestant  religion.  I  do  not  say  that  other  and  more 
intelligent  forces  than  this  were  not  opposed  to  the 
Oxford  movement :  but  this  was  the  force  which  really 
beat  it  ;  this  was  the  force  which  Dr.  Newman  felt  him- 
self to  be  fighting  with  ;  this  was  the  force  which  till  only 
the  other  day  seemed  to  be  the  paramount  force  in  this 
country,  and  to  be  in  possession  of  the  future  ;  this  was 
the  force  whose  achievements  fill  Mr.  Lowe  or  Mr. 
Bright  with  such  inexpressible  admiration,  and  of  whose 
rule  they  cry  :  Esto  perpetua  !  And  where  is  this  great 
force  of  Philistinism  now  ?  It  is  thrust  into  the  second 
rank,  it  is  become  a  power  of  yesterday,  it  has  lost  the 


The  Oxford  Movement.  'J2> 

future.  A  new  power  has  made  its  appearance,  a  power 
which  it  is  impossible  yet  to  judge  fully,  but  which  is 
certainly  a  wholly  different  force  from  middle-class  liberal- 
ism ;  different  in  its  cardinal  points  of  belief,  different  in 
its  tendencies  in  every  sphere.  It  loves  and  admires 
neither  the  legislation  of  middle-class  Parliaments,  nor 
the  local  self-government  of  middle-class  vestries,  nor 
the  unrestricted  competition  of  middle-class  industri- 
alists, nor  the  dissidence  of  middle-class  Dissent  and 
the  Protestantism  of  middle-class  Protestant  religion.  I 
am  not  now  praising  this  new  force,  or  saying  that  its 
own  ideals  are  better  ;  all  I  say  is,  that  they  are  wholly 
different.  And  who  will  estimate  how  much  the  currents 
of  feeling  created  by  Dr.  Newman's  movements,  the 
keen  desire  for  beauty  and  sweetness  which  it  nourished, 
the  deep  aversion  it  manifested  to  the  hardness  and 
vulgarity  of  middle-class  liberalism,  the  strong  light  it 
turned  on  the  hideous  and  grotesque  illusions  of  middle- 
class  Protestantism, — who  will  estimate  how  much  all 
these  contributed  to  swell  the  tide  of  secret  dissatisfac- 
tion which  has  mined  the  ground  under  the  self-confident 
liberalism  of  the  last  thirty  years,  and  has  prepared  the 
way  for  its  sudden  collapse  and  supersession  ?  It  is  in 
this  manner  that  the  sentiment  of  Oxford  for  beauty  and 
sweetness  conquers,  and  in  this  manner  long  may  it  con- 
tinue to  conquer  ! — Culture  and  Anarchy. 


74      •  Literature. 


OXFORD. 

Beautiful  city, — so  venerable,  so  lovely,  so  unravaged 
by  the  fierce  intellectual  life  of  our  century,  so  serene  ! 

There  are  our  young  barbarians,  all  at  play  ! 

And  yet,  steeped  in  sentiment  as  she  lies,  spreading  her 
gardens  to  the  moonlight,  and  whispering  from  her  towers 
the  last  enchantments  of  the  Middle  Age,  who  will  deny 
that  Oxford,  by  her  ineffable  charm,  keeps  ever  calling  us 
nearer  to  the  true  goal  of  all  of  us,  to  the  ideal,  to  per- 
fection,— to  beauty,  in  a  word,  which  is  only  truth  seen 
-from  another  side  ? — nearer,  perhaps,  than  all  the  science 
of  Tiibingen.     Adorable  dreamer,  whose  heart  has  been 
so  romantic  !  w^ho  hast  given  thyself  so  prodigally,  given 
thyself  to  sides  and  to  heroes  not  mine,  only  never  to  the 
Philistines  !  home  of  lost  causes,  and  forsaken  beliefs, 
and  unpopular  names,  and  impossible  loyalties  !    what 
example  could  ever  so  inspire  us  to  keep  down  the  Phi- 
listine in  ourselves,  what  teacher  could  ever  so  save  us 
from  that  bondage  to  which  we  are  all  prone,  that  bondage 
which  Goethe,  in  his  incomparable  lines  on  the  death  of 
Schiller,  makes  it  his  friend's  highest  praise  (and  nobly 
did  Schiller  deserve  the  praise)  to  have  left  miles  out  of 
sight  behind  him ; — the  bondage  of  '  was  mis  alle  bdndigl, 
DAS  GEMEiNE  ! '     Oxford  will  forgive  me,  even  if  I  have 
unwittingly  drawn  upon  her  a  shot  or  two  aimed  at  her 


Oxford.  75 

unworthy  son  ;  for  she  is  generous,  and  the  cause  in 
which  I  fight  is,  after  all,  hers.  Apparitions  of  a  day, 
what  is  our  puny  warfare  against  the  Philistines,  compared 
with  the  warfare  which  this  queen  of  romance  has  been 
waging  against  them  for  centuries,  and  will  wage  after  we 
are  gone  ? — Essays  in  Criticism. 

A    CHAIR   OF  CELTIC  AT  OXFORD. 

A  MAN  of  exquisite  intelligence  and  charming  character, 
the  late  Mr.  Cobden,  used  to  fancy  that  a  better  acquaint- 
ance with  the  United  States  was  the  grand  panacea  for 
us  ;  and  once  in  a  speech  he  bewailed  the  inattention  of 
our  seats  of  learning  to  them,  and  seemed  to  think  that 
if  our  ingenuous  youth  at  Oxford  were  taught  a  little  less 
about  the  Iliszus,  and  a  little  more  about  Chicago,  we 
should  all  be  the  better  for  it.  Chicago  has  its  claims 
upon  us,  no  doubt  ;  but  it  is  evident  that  from  the  point 
of  view  to  which  I  have  been  leading,  a  stimulation  of 
our  Anglo-Saxonism,  such  as  is  intended  by  Mr.  Cobden's 
proposal,  does  not  appear  the  thing  most  needful  for  us ; 
seeing  our  American  brothers  themselves  have  rather, 
like  us,  to  try  and  moderate  the  flame  of  Anglo-Saxonism 
in  their  own  breasts,  than  to  ask  us  to  clap  the  bellows  to 
it  in  ours.  So  I  am  inclined  to  beseech  Oxford,  instead 
of  expiating  her  over-addiction  to  the  Ilissus  by  lectures 
on  Chicago,  to  give  us  an  expounder  for  a  still  more 
remote-looking  object  than  the  Ilissus, — the  Celtic  Ian- 


76  Literature. 


guages  and  literature.  And  yet  why  should  I  call  it 
remote?  if,  as  I  have  been  labouring  to  show,  in  the 
spiritual  frame  of  us  English  ourselves,  a  Celtic  fibre, 
little  as  we  may  have  ever  thought  of  tracing  it,  lives  and 
works.  Aliens  in  speech,  in  religion,  in  blood!  said  Lord 
Lyndhurst  ;  the  philologists  have  set  him  right  about  the 
speech,  the  physiologists  about  the  blood  ;  and  perhaps, 
taking  religion  in  the  wide  but  true  sense  of  our  whole 
spiritual  activity,  of  poetry  as  well  as  of  creed,  those  who 
follow  the  matter  out  will  find  that  the  Celt  is  not  so 
wholly  alien  to  us  in  religion. 

At  this  moment,  when  the  narrow  Philistinism  which 
has  long  had  things  all  its  own  way  in  England,  is 
showing  its  natural  fruits,  and  we  are  beginning  to  feel 
ashamed,  and  uneasy,  and  alarmed  at  it ;  at  such  a 
moment,  it  needs  some  moderation  not  to  be  attacking 
Philistinism  by  storm,  but  to  mine  it  through  such 
gradual  means  as  the  slow  approaches  of  culture,  and  the 
introduction  of  chairs  of  Celtic.  But  the  hard  unintelli- 
gence,  which  is  just  now  our  bane,  cannot  be  conquered 
by  storm  ;  it  must  be  suppled  and  reduced  by  culture, 
by  a  growth  in  the  variety,  fulness,  and  sweetness  of  our 
spiritual  life  ;  and  this  end  can  only  be  reached  by  study- 
ing things  that  are  outside  of  ourselves,  and  by  studying 
them  disinterestedly.  Let  us  reunite  ourselves  with  our 
better  mind  and  with  the  world  through  science  ;  and 
let  it  be  one  of  our  angelic  revenges  on  the  Philistines, 


A  Chair  of  Celtic  at  Oxford.  7  7 


who  among  their  other  sins  are  the  guilty  authors  of 
Fenianism,  to  found  at  Oxford  a  chair  of  Celtic,  and 
to  send,  through  the  gentle  ministration  of  science,  a 
message  of  peace  to  Ireland. — Study  of  Celtic  Literature. 

ARTHUR  HUGH  CLOUGH. 

How  can  I  help  remembering  what  a  mind  and  character 
we  have  lost  in  losing  Mr.  Clough,  whose  name  has 
more  than  once  occurred  in  my  lectures  on  Homer? 
He,  too,  was  busy  with  Homer ;  but  it  is  not  on  that  ac- 
count that  I  now  speak  of  him.  Nor  do  I  speak  of  him 
in  order  to  call  attention  to  his  qualities  and  powers  in 
general,  admirable  as  these  were.  I  mention  him  because, 
in  so  eminent  a  degree,  he  possessed  these  two  invaluable 
literary  qualities  :  a  true  sense  for  his  object  of  study, 
and  a  single-hearted  care  for  it.  He  had  both ;  but  he 
had  the  second  even  more  eminently  than  the  first. 
He  greatly  developed  the  first  through  means  of  the 
second.  In  the  study  of  art,  poetry,  or  philosophy,  he 
had  the  most  undivided  and  disinterested  love  for  his 
object  in  itself,  the  greatest  aversion  to  mixing  up  with  it 
anything  accidental  or  personal.  His  interest  was  in 
Uterature  itself;  and  it  was  this  which  gave  so  rare  a 
stamp  to  his  character,  which  kept  him  so  free  from  all 
taint  of  littleness.  In  the  saturnalia  of  ignoble  personal 
passions,  of  which  the  struggle  for  literary  success,  in  old 
and  crowded  communities,  offers  so  sad  a  spectacle,  he 


78  Literature. 


never  mingled.  He  had  not  yet  traduced  his  friends, 
nor  flattered  his  enemies,  nor  disparaged  what  he  admired, 
nor  praised  what  he  despised.  Those  who  knew  him 
well  had  the  conviction  that,  even  with  time,  these 
literary  arts  would  never  be  his.  His  poem,  '  The  Bothie 
of  Toper-na-Fuosich,'  has  some  admirable  Homeric  quali- 
ties ;— out-of-doors  freshness,  life,  naturalness,  buoyant 
rapidity.  Some  of  the  expressions  in  that  poem, — '  Dan- 
gerous Corrievreckan.  .  .  .  Where  roads  are  unknown  to 
Loch  Nevish' — come  back  now  to  my  ear  with  the  true 
Homeric  ring.  But  that  in  him  of  which  I  think  oftenest, 
is  the  Homeric  simplicity  of  his  Hterary  \iiQ.—Last  Words 
on  Translating  Homer. 


II. 

POLITICS  AND    SOCIETY. 


8r 


THE    YOUNG  LIONS. 

Mr.  Wright  would  perhaps  be  more  indulgent  to  my 
vivacity,  if  he  considered  that  we  are  none  of  us  likely 
to  be  lively  much  longer.  My  vivacity  is  but  the  last 
sparkle  of  flame  before  we  are  all  in  the  dark,  the  last 
glimpse  of  colour  before  we  all  go  into  drab, — the  drab 
of  the  earnest,  prosaic,  practical,  austerely  literal  future. 
Yes,  the  world  will  soon  be  the  Philistines'  !  and  then, 
with  every  voice,  not  of  thunder,  silenced,  and  the  whole 
earth  filled  and  ennobled  every  morning  by  the  mag- 
nificent roaring  of  the  young  lions  of  the  '  Daily  Tele- 
graph,' we  shall  all  yawn  in  one  another's  faces  with  the 
dismallest,  the  most  unimpeachable  gravity. — Essays  in 
Criticism. 

BRITISH  CONSTITUTION. 

Where  shall  we  find  language  innocent  enough,  how 
shall  we  make  the  spotless  purity  of  our  intentions  evi- 
dent enough,  to  enable  us  to  say  to  the  political  English- 
man, that  the  British  Constitution  itself,  which,  seen  from 
the  practical  side,  looks  such  a  magnificent  organ  of  pro- 
gress and  virtue,  seen  from  the  speculative  side, — with  its 

G 


82  Politics  and  Society. 

compromises,  its  love  of  facts,  its  horror  of  theory,  its 
studied  avoidance  of  clear  thoughts, — that,  seen  from  this 
side,  our  august  Constitution  sometimes  looks, — forgive 
me,  shade  of  Lord  Somers  ! — a  colossal  machine  for  the 
manufacture  of  Philistines  ? — Essays  in  Crittcistn. 

THE  LICENSED    VICTUALLERS. 

Every  thing  in  our  political  life  tends  to  hide  from  us 
that  there  is  anything  wiser  than  our  ordinary  selves,  and 
to  prevent  our  getting  the  notion  of  a  paramount  right 
reason.  Royalty  itself,  in  its  idea  the  expression  of  the 
collective  nation,  and  a  sort  of  constituted  witness  to  its 
best  mind,  we  try  to  turn  into  a  kind  of  grand  advertising 
van,  meant  to  give  publicity  and  credit  to  the  inventions, 
sound  or  unsound,  of  the  ordinary  self  of  individuals, 

I  remember,  when  I  was  in  North  Germany,  having 
this  very  strongly  brought  to  my  mind  in  the  matter  of 
schools  and  their  institution.  In  Prussia,  the  best  schools 
are  Crown  patronage  schools,  as  they  are  called ;  schools 
which  have  been  established  and  endowed  (and  new  ones 
are  to  this  day  being  established  and  endowed)  by  the 
Sovereign  himself  out  of  his  own  revenues,  to  be  under 
the  direct  control  and  management  of  him  or  of  those 
representing  him,  and  to  serve  as  types  of  what  schools 
should  be.  The  Sovereign,  as  his  position  raises  him 
above  many  prejudices  and  littlenesses,  and  as  he  can 
always  have  at  his  disposal  the  best  advice,  has  evident 


TJie  Licensed  Victuallers.  83 

advantages  over  private  founders  in  well  planning  and 
directing  a  school ;  while  at  the  same  time  his  great 
means  and  his  great  influence  secure,  to  a  well-planned 
school  of  his,  credit  and  authority.  This  is  what,  in 
North  Germany,  the  governors  do  in  the  matter  of  edu- 
cation for  the  governed  ;  and  one  may  say  that  they  thus 
give  the  governed  a  lesson,  and  draw  out  in  them  the 
idea  of  a  right  reason  higher  than  the  suggestions  of  an 
ordinary  man's  ordinary  self. 

But  in  England  how  different  is  the  part  which  in 
this  matter  our  governors  are  accustomed  to  play  !  The 
Licensed  Victuallers  or  the  Commercial  Travellers  pro- 
pose to  make  a  school  for  their  children  ;  and  I  suppose, 
in  the  matter  of  schools,  one  may  call  the  Licensed 
Victuallers  or  the  Commercial  Travellers  ordinary  men, 
with  their  natural  taste  for  the  bathos  still  strong  ;  and  a 
Sovereign  with  the  advice  of  men  like  Wilhelm  von 
Humboldt  or  Schleiermacher  may,  in  this  matter,  be  a 
better  judge,  and  nearer  to  right  reason.  And  it  will  be 
allowed,  probably,  that  right  reason  would  suggest  that, 
to  have  a  sheer  school  of  Licensed  Victuallers'  children, 
or  a  sheer  school  of  Commercial  Travellers'  children,  and 
to  bring  them  all  up,  not  only  at  home  but  at  school  too, 
in  a  kind  of  odour  of  licensed  victualism  or  of  bag- 
manism,  is  not  a  wise  training  to  give  to  these  children. 
And  in  Germany,  I  have  said,  the  action  of  the  national 
guides  or  governors  is  to  suggest  and  provide  a  better. 

G  2 


84  Politics  and  Society. 

But,  in  England,  the  action  of  the  national  guides  or 
governors  is,  for  a  Royal  Prince  or  a  great  Minister  to  go 
down  to  the  opening  of  the  Licensed  Victuallers'  or  of 
the  Commercial  Travellers'  school,  to  take  the  chair,  to 
extol  the  energy  and  self-reliance  of  the  Licensed  Victual- 
lers or  the  Commercial  Travellers,  to  be  all  of  their  way 
of  thinking,  to  predict  full  success  to  their  schools,  and 
never  so  much  as  to  hint  to  them  that  they  are  probably 
doing  a  very  foolish  thing,  and  that  the  right  way  to  go 
to  work  with  their  children's  education  is  quite  different. 
And  it  is  the  same  in  almost  every  department  of  affairs. — 
Culture  and  Anarchy. 

BARBARIANS,    PHILISTINES,    POPULACE. 

For  the  middle  class,  for  that  great  body  which,  as  we 
know,  '  has  done  all  the  great  things  that  have  been 
done  in  all  departments,'  we  have  a  designation  w^hich 
now  has  become  pretty  well  known,  and  which  we 
may  as  well  still  keep  for  them, — the  designation  of 
Philistines.  What  this  term  means  I  have  so  often 
explained  that  I  need  not  repeat  it  here.  For  the 
aristocratic  class  we  have  as  yet  got  no  special  desig- 
nation. Almost  all  my  attention  has  naturally  been 
concentrated  on  my  own  class,  the  middle  class,  with 
which  I  am  in  closest  sympathy,  and  which  has  been, 
besides,  the  great  power  of  our  day,  and  has  had  its 
praises  sung  by  all  speakers  and  newspapers. 


Barbarians,  Philistines,  Populace.       85 


Still,  the  aristocratic  class  is  so  important  in  itself, 
and  the  weighty  functions  which  Mr.  Carlyle  proposes 
at  the  present  critical  time  to  commit  to  it  must  add  so 
much  to  its  importance,  that  it  seems  neglectful,  and  a 
strong  instance  of  that  want  of  coherent  philosophic 
method  for  which  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  blames  me,  to 
leave  the  aristocratic  class  so  much  without  notice  and 
denomination.  It  may  be  thought  that  the  characteristic 
which  I  have  occasionally  mentioned  as  proper  to  aristo- 
cracies,—their  natural  inaccessibility,  as  children  of  the 
established  fact,  to  ideas, — points  to  our  extending  to  this 
class  also  the  designation  of  Philistines  ;  the  Philistine 
being,  as  is  well  known,  the  enemy  of  the  children  of 
light  or  servants  of  the  idea.  Nevertheless,  there  seems 
to  be  an  inconvenience  in  thus  giving  one  and  the  same 
designation  to  two  very  different  classes  ;  and  besides,  if 
we  look  into  the  thing  closely,  we  shall  find  that  the  term 
Philistine  conveys  a  sense  which  makes  it  more  peculiarly 
appropriate  to  our  middle  class  than  to  our  aristocratic. 
For  Philistine  gives  the  notion  of  something  particularly 
stiff-necked  and  perverse  in  the  resistance  to  light  and  the 
children  of  light,  and  therein  it  specially  suits  our  middle 
class,  who  not  only  do  not  pursue  sweetness  and  light, 
but  who  even  prefer  to  them  that  sort  of  machinery  of 
business,  chapels,  tea-meetings,  and  addresses  from  Mr. 
]\Iurphy,  which  makes  up  the  dismal  and  illiberal  life  on 
which  I  have  so  often  touched.     But  the  aristocratic  class 


86  Politics  and  Society. 

has  actually,  as  we  have  seen,  in  its  well-known  politeness, 
a  kind  of  image  or  shadow  of  sweetness  j  and  as  for  light, 
if  it  does  not  pursue  light,  it  is  not  that  it  perversely 
cherishes  some  dismal  and  illiberal  existence  in  preference 
to  light,  but  it  is  lured  off  from  following  light  by  those 
mighty  and  eternal  seducers  of  our  race  which  weave 
for  this  class  their  most  irresistible  charms, — by  worldly 
splendour,  security,  power,  and  pleasure.  These  seducers 
are  exterior  goods,  but  they  are  goods  ;  and  he  who 
is  hindered  by  them  from  caring  for  light  and  ideas, 
is  not  so  much  doing  what  is  perverse  as  what  is  too 
natural. 

Keeping  this  in  view,  I  have  in  my  own  mind  often 

indulged  myself  with  the  fancy  of  employing,  in  order  to 

designate  our  aristocratic  class,  the  name  of  The  Barba- 

riaiis.     The  Barbarians,  to  whom  we  all  owe  so  much,  and 

who   reinvigorated  and  renewed  our  worn-out  Europe, 

had,    as   is   well   known,    eminent  merits ;   and  in  this 

country,  where  we  are  for  the  most  part  sprung  from  the 

Barbarians,  we  have  never  had  the  prejudice  against  them 

which  prevails  among  the  races  of  Latin  origin.     The 

Barbarians  brought  with  them  that  staunch  individualism, 

as  the  modern  phrase  is,  and  that  passion  for  doing  as 

one  likes,   for   the  assertion  of  personal  liberty,  which 

appears  to  Mr.  Bright  the  central  idea  of  English  life,  and 

of  which  we  have,  at  any  rate,  a  very  rich  supply.     The 

stronghold  and  natural  seat  of  this  passion  was  in  the 


Barbarians,  P/iilisiines,  Populace.       87 

nobles  of  whom  our  aristocratic  class  are  the  inheritors  ; 
and  this  class,  accordingly,  have  signally  manifested  it, 
and  have  done  much  by  their  example  to  recommend  it 
to  the  body  of  the  nation,  who  already,  indeed,  had  it  in 
their  blood.  The  Barbarians,  again,  had  the  passion  for 
field-sports  ;  and  they  have  handed  it  on  to  our  aristo- 
cratic class,  who  of  this  passion  too,  as  of  the  passion  for 
asserting  one's  personal  liberty,  are  the  great  natural 
stronghold.  The  care  of  the  Barbarians  for  the  body, 
and  for  all  manly  exercises  ;  the  vigour,  good  looks,  and 
fine  complexion  which  they  acquired  and  perpetuated  in 
their  families  by  these  means, — all  this  may  be  observed 
still  in  our  aristocratic  class.  The  chivalry  of  the  Bar- 
barians, with  its  characteristics  of  high  spirit,  choice 
manners,  and  distinguished  bearing, — what  is  this  but  the 
attractive  commencement  of  the  politeness  of  our  aristo- 
cratic class?  In  some  Barbarian  noble,  no  doubt,  one 
would  have  admired,  if  one  could  have  been  then  alive 
to  see  it,  the  rudiments  of  our  politest  peer.  Only,  all 
this  culture  (to  call  it  by  that  name)  of  the  Barbarians 
was  an  exterior  culture  mainly.  It  consisted  principally 
in  outward  gifts  and  graces,  in  looks,  manners,  accom- 
plishments, prowess.  The  chief  inward  gifts  which  had 
part  in  it  were  the  most  exterior,  so  to  speak,  of  inward 
gifts,  those  which  come  nearest  to  outward  ones  ;  they 
were  courage,  a  high  spirit,  self-confidence.  Far  within, 
and  unawakened,  lay  a  whole  range  of  powers  of  thought 


88  Politics  and  Society. 


and  feeling,  to  which  these  interesting  productions  of 
nature  had,  from  the  circumstances  of  their  hfe,  no  access. 
Making  allowances  for  the  difference  of  the  times,  surely 
we  can  observe  precisely  the  same  thing  now  in  our  aris- 
tocratic class.  In  general  its  culture  is  exterior  chiefly  ; 
all  the  exterior  graces  and  accomplishments,  and  the 
more  external  of  the  inward  virtues,  seem  to  be  princi- 
pally its  portion.  It  now,  of  course,  cannot  but  be  often 
in  contact  with  those  studies  by  which,  from  the  world  of 
thought  and  feeling,  true  culture  teaches  us  to  fetch 
sweetness  and  light ;  but  its  hold  upon  these  very  studies 
appears  remarkably  external,  and  unable  to  exert  any 
deep  power  upon  its  spirit.  Therefore  the  one  insuf- 
ficiency which  we  noted  in  the  perfect  mean  of  this  class 
was  an  insufficiency  of  light.  And  owing  to  the  same 
causes,  does  not  a  subtle  criticism  lead  us  to  make,  even 
on  the  good  looks  and  politeness  of  our  aristocratic 
class,  and  of  even  the  most  fascinating  half  of  that  class, 
the  feminine  half,  the  one  qualifying  remark,  that  in  these 
charming  gifts  there  should  perhaps  be,  for  ideal  perfec- 
tion, a  shade  more  soul'i 

I  often,  therefore,  when  I  want  to  distinguish  clearly 
the  aristocratic  class  from  the  Philistines  proper,  or 
middle  class,  name  the  former,  in  my  own  mind.  The 
Barbarians.  And  when  I  go  through  the  country,  and 
see  this  and  that  beautiful  and  imposing  seat  of  theirs 
crowning  the  landscape,  '  There,'  I  say  to  myself,  '  is  a 


BarbmHans,  Philisthics,  Populace.        89 

great  fortified  post  of  the  Barbarians.' — Culture  and 
Anarchy. 

AMERICA. 

Our  society  distributes  itself  into  Barbarians,  Philistines, 
and  Populace  ;  and  America  is  just  ourselves,  with  the 
Barbarians  quite  left  out,  and  the  Populace  nearly.  This 
leaves  the  Philistines  for  the  great  bulk  of  the  nation  ; — 
a  livelier  sort  of  Philistine  than  ours,  and  with  the  pres- 
sure and  false  ideal  of  our  Barbarians  taken  away,  but 
left  all  the  more  to  himself  and  to  have  his  full  swing. 
And  as  we  have  found  that  the  strongest  and  most  vital 
part  of  English  Philistinism  was  the  Puritan  and  He- 
braising  middle-class,  and  that  its  Hebraising  keeps  it  from 
culture  and  totality,  so  it  is  notorious  that  the  people  of 
the  United  States  issues  from  this  class,  and  reproduces 
its  tendencies, — its  narrow  conception  of  man's  spiritual 
range  and  of  his  one  thing  needful.  From  Maine  to 
Florida,  and  back  again,  all  America  Hebraises.  Dif- 
ficult as  it  is  to  speak  of  a  people  merely  from  what  one 
reads,  yet  that,  I  think,  one  may  without  much  fear  of 
contradiction  say.  I  mean,  when  in  the  United  States 
any  spiritual  side  in  man  is  wakened  to  activity,  it  is 
generally  the  religious  side,  and  the  religious  side  in  a 
narrow  way.  Social  reformers  go  to  Moses  or  St.  Paul 
for  their  doctrines,  and  have  no  notion  there  is  anywhere 
else  to  go  to  ;  earnest  young  men  at  schools  and  univer- 


90  Politics  and  Society. 

sides,  instead  of  conceiving  salvation  as  a  harmonious 
perfection  only  to  be  won  by  unreservedly  cultivating 
many  sides  in  us,  conceive  of  it  in  the  old  Puritan  fashion, 
and  fling  themselves  ardently  upon  it  in  the  old,  false 
ways  of  this  fashion,  which  we  know  so  well,  and  such  as 
Mr,  Hammond,  the  American  revivalist,  has  lately  at 
Mr.  Spurgeon's  Tabernacle  been  refreshing  our  memory 
with. — Culture  and  Anarchy. 

AMERICA   AND  FRANCE. 

A  RECENT  French  writer,  looking  for  the  good  points  in 
the  old  French  nobility,  remarks  that  this  at  any  rate  is 
to  be  said  in  their  favour  :  they  established  a  high  and 
charming  ideal  of  social  intercourse  and  manners,  for  a 
nation  formed  to  profit  by  such  an  ideal,  and  which  has 
profited  by  it  ever  since.  And  in  America,  perhaps,  we 
see  the  disadvantages  of  having  social  equality  before 
there  has  been  any  such  high  standard  of  social  life  and 
manners  formed. — Mixed  Essays. 

THE  ENGLISH  GENTLEMAN. 

Heaven  forbid  that  I  should  speak  in  dispraise  of  that 
unique  and  most  English  class  which  Mr.  Charles  Sumner 
extols, — the  large  class  'of  gentlemen,  not  of  the  landed 
class  or  of  the  nobility,  but  cultivated  and  refined.  They 
are  a  seemly  product  of  the  energy  and  of  the  power  to 
rise  in  our  race.     Without,  in  general,  rank  and  splendour 


The  English  Gentleman.  91 

and  wealth  and  luxury  to  polish  them,  they  have  made 
their  own,  the  high  standard  of  life  and  manners  of  an 
aristocratic  and  refined  class.  Not  having  all  the  dissi- 
pations and  distractions  of  this  class,  they  are  much 
more  seriously  alive  to  the  power  of  intellect  and  know- 
ledge, to  the  power  of  beauty.  The  sense  of  conduct, 
too,  meets  with  fewer  trials  in  this  class.  To  some 
extent,  however,  their  contiguousness  to  the  aristocratic 
class  has  now  the  effect  of  materialising  them,  as  it  does 
the  class  of  newly  enriched  people.  The  most  palpable 
action  is  on  the  young  amongst  them,  and  on  their 
standard  of  life  and  enjoyment.  But  in  general,  for 
this  whole  class,  established  facts,  the  materialism  which 
they  see  regnant,  too  much  block  their  mental  horizon, 
and  limit  the  possibilities  of  things  to  them.  They  are 
deficient  in  openness  and  flexibility  of  mind,  in  free  play 
of  ideas,  in  faith  and  ardour.  Civilised  they  are,  but 
they  are  not  much  of  a  civiHsing  force ;  they  are  somehow 
bounded  and  ineffective.- — Mixed  Essays. 

THE  ALDERMAN-COLONEL. 

Every  one  remembers  the  virtuous  Alderman-Colonel, 
or  Colonel- Alderman,  who  had  to  lead  his  militia  through 
the  London  streets  ;  how  the  bystanders  gathered  to  see 
him  pass  ;  how  the  London  roughs,  asserting  an  English- 
man's best  and  most  blissful  right  of  doing  what  he  likes, 
robbed  and  beat  the  bystanders ;  and  how  the  blameless 


9  -  Politics  and  Society. 

warrior-magistrate  refused  to  let  his  troops  interfere. 
'The  crowd,'  he  touchingly  said  afterwards,  'was  mostly 
composed  of  fine,  healthy,  strong  men,  bent  on  mischief ; 
if  he  had  allowed  his  soldiers  to  interfere,  they  might 
have  been  overpowered,  their  rifles  taken  from  them  and 
used  against  them  by  the  mob  ;  a  riot,  in  fact,  might  have 
ensued,  and  been  attended  with  bloodshed,  compared 
with  which  the  assaults  and  loss  of  property  that  actually 
occurred  would  have  been  as  nothing.'  Honest  and 
affecting  testimony  of  the  English  middle  class  to  its  own 
inadequacy  for  the  authoritative  part  one's  admiration 
would  sometimes  incline  one  to  assign  to  it !  '  Who  are 
we,'  they  say  by  the  voice  of  their  Alderman-Colonel, 
'that  we  should  not  be  overpowered  if  we  attempt  to 
cope  with  social  anarchy,  our  rifles  taken  from  us  and 
used  against  us  by  the  mob,  and  we,  perhaps,  robbed 
and  beaten  ourselves  ?  Or  what  light  have  we,  beyond 
a  free-born  Englishman's  impulse  to  do  as  he  likes, 
which  could  justify  us  in  preventing,  at  the  cost  of  blood- 
shed, other  free-born  Englishmen  from  doing  as  they  like, 
and  robbing  and  beating  us  as  much  as  they  please  ? ' — 
Culture  and  Anarchy. 

THE  ROUGH. 

The  rough  is  just  asserting  his  personal  liberty  a  little, 
going  where  he  likes,  assembling  where  he  likes,  bawl- 
ing as  he  likes,  hustling  as  he  likes.     Exactly  as  the  rest 


The  Rough.  93 


of  us, — as  the  country  squires  in  the  aristocratic  class, 
as  the  pohtical  dissenters  in  the  middle  class, — he  has 
no  idea  of  a  State,  of  the  nation  in  its  collective  and 
corporate  character  controlling,  as  government,  the  free 
swing  of  this  or  that  one  of  its  members  in  the  name  of 
the  higher  reason  of  all  of  them,  his  own  as  well  as  that  of 
others.  He  sees  the  rich,  the  aristocratic  clas?,  in  occupa- 
tion of  the  executive  government ;  and  so,  if  he  is  stopped 
from  making  Hyde  Park  a  bear-garden  or  the  streets 
impassable,  he  cries  out  that  he  is  being  butchered  by 
the  aristocracy. 

His  apparition  is  somewhat  embarrassing,  because  too 
many  cooks  spoil  the  broth  ;  because,  while  the  aristo- 
cratic and  middle  classes  have  long  been  doing  as  they 
like  with  great  vigour,  he  has  been  too  undeveloped  and 
submissive  hitherto  to  join  in  the  game  ;  and  now,  when 
he  does  come,  he  comes  in  immense  numbers,  and  is 
rather  raw  and  rough.  But  he  does  not  break  many 
laws,  or  not  many  at  one  time  ;  and,  as  our  laws  were 
made  for  very  different  circumstances  from  our  present 
(but  always  with  an  eye  to  Englishmen  doing  as  they 
like),  and  as  the  clear  letter  of  the  law  must  be  against 
our  Englishman  who  does  as  he  likes,  and  not  only  the 
spirit  of  the  law  and  public  policy,  and  as  Government 
must  neither  have  any  discretionary  power  nor  act  reso- 
lutely on  its  own  interpretation  of  the  law  if  any  one 
disputes  it,  it  is  evident  our  laws  give  our  playful  giant, 


94  Politics  and  Society. 

in  doing  as  he  likes,  considerable  advantage. — Culture 
and  Anarchy. 

REQUISITES  FOR   CIVILISATION. 

I  PUT  first  among  the  elements  in  human  civilisation  the 
instinct  of  expansion,  because  it  is  the  basis  which  man's 
whole  effort  to  civilise  himself  presupposes.  General 
civilisation  presupposes  this  instinct,  which  is  inseparable 
from  human  nature  ;  presupposes  its  being  satisfied,  not 
defeated.  The  basis  being  given,  we  may  next  enume- 
rate the  powers  which,  upon  this  basis,  contribute  to 
build  up  human  civilisation.  They  are  the  power  of 
conduct,  the  power  of  intellect  and  knowledge,  the  power 
of  beauty,  the  power  of  social  life  and  manners.  Expan- 
sion, conduct,  science,  beauty,  manners, — here  are  the 
conditions  of  civilisation,  the  claimants  which  man  must 
satisfy  before  he  can  be  humanised. — Mixed  Essays. 

THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

Men  of  culture  and  poetry,  it  will  be  said,  are  again 
and  again  failing,  and  failing  conspicuously,  in  the 
necessary  first  stage  to  a  harmonious  perfection,  in  the 
subduing  of  the  great  obvious  faults  of  our  animality, 
which  it  is  the  glory  of  the  religious  organisations  to 
have  helped  us  to  subdue.  True,  they  do  often  so  fail. 
They  have  often  been  without  the  virtues  as  well  as  the 
faults  of  the  Puritan ;  it  has  been  one  of  their  dangers 


The  Pilgrim  Fathers.  95 

that  they  so  felt  the  Puritan's  faults  that  they  too  much 
neglected  the  practice  of  his  virtues.  I  will  not,  however, 
exculpate  them  at  the  Puritan's  expense.  They  have 
often  failed  in  morality,  and  morality  is  indispensable. 
And  they  have  been  punished  for  their  failure,  as  the 
Puritan  has  been  rewarded  for  his  performance.  They 
have  been  punished  wherein  they  erred ;  but  their  ideal 
of  beauty,  of  sweetness  and  light,  and  a  human  nature 
complete  on  all  its  sides,  remains  the  true  ideal  of  perfec- 
tion still  ;  just  as  the  Puritan's  ideal  of  perfection  remains 
narrow  and  inadequate,  although  for  what  he  did  well  he 
has  been  richly  rewarded.  Notwithstanding  the  mighty 
results  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers'  voyage,  they  and  their 
standard  of  perfection  are  rightly  judged  when  we  figure 
to  ourselves  Shakspeare  or  Virgil, — souls  in  whom  sweet- 
ness and  light,  and  all  that  in  human  nature  is  most 
humane  were  eminent, — accompanying  them  on  their 
voyage,  and  think  what  intolerable  company  Shakspeare 
and  Virgil  would  have  found  them  !  In  the  same  way 
let  us  judge  the  religious  organisations  which  we  see  all 
around  us.  Do  not  let  us  deny  the  good  and  the  hap- 
piness which  they  have  accomplished  ;  but  do  not  let  us 
fail  to  see  clearly  that  their  idea  of  human  perfection  is 
narrow  and  inadequate,  and  that  the  Dissidence  of  Dis- 
sent and  the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant  religion  will 
never  bring  humanity  to  its  true  goal.  As  I  said  with 
regard  to  wealth  :  Let  us  look  at  the  life  of  those  who 


g6  Politics  and  Society. 


live  in  it  and  for  it, — so  I  say  with  regard  to  the  religious 
organisations.  Look  at  the  life  imaged  in  such  a  news- 
paper as  the  'Nonconformist,' — a  life  of  jealousy  of  the  Es- 
tablishment, disputes,  tea-meetings,  openings  of  chapels, 
sermons  ;  and  then  think  of  it  as  an  ideal  of  a  human 
life  completing  itself  on  all  sides,  and  aspiring  with  all  its 
organs  after  sweetness,  light,  and  perfection  ! — Culture 
and  Anarchy. 

THE  PURITAN  TYPE. 

Men  make  crude  types  and  try  to  impose  them,  but 
to  no  purpose.  Bhonime  s'agite,  Dieu  le  7naie,  says  ^ 
Bossuet.  '  There  are  many  devices  in  a  man's  heart 
nevertheless,  the  counsel  of  the  Eternal,  that  shall  stand. 
Those  who  offer  us  the  Puritan  type  of  life  offer  us  a 
religion  not  true,  the  claims  of  intellect  and  knowledge 
not  satisfied,  the  claim  of  beauty  not  satisfied,  the  claim 
of  manners  not  satisfied.  In  its  strong  sense  for  conduct 
that  life  touches  truth  ;  but  its  other  imperfections  hinder 
it  from  employing  even  this  sense  aright.  The  type 
mastered  our  nation  for  a  time.  Then  came  the  reaction. 
The  nation  said  :  '  This  type,  at  any  rate,  is  amiss  ;  we 
are  not  going  to  be  all  like  that  f '  The  type  retired  into 
our  middle  class,  and  fortified  itself  there.  It  seeks  to 
endure,  to  emerge,  to  deny  its  own  imperfections,  to  im- 
pose itself  again  ; — impossible  !  If  we  continue  to  live, 
we  must  outgrow  it.     The  very  class  in  which  it  is  rooted, 


The  Ptcritan  Type.  97 

our  middle  class,  will  have  to  acknowledge  the  type's  in- 
adequacy, will  have  to  acknowledge  the  hideousness,  the 
immense  ennui  of  the  life  which  this  type  has  created, 
will  have  to  transform  itself  thoroughly. — Mixed  Essays. 

lURITANISM  AND  LIBERTY. 

Is  it  certain  that  of  the  good  which  we  admittedly  have 
in  our  England  of  to-day,— the  seriousness  and  the 
political  libert}^, — the  Puritans  and  the  Puritan  triumph 
are  the  authors  ?  The  assumption  that  they  are  so  is 
plausible  ;  it  is  current ; — it  pervades,  let  me  observe  in 
passing,  Mr.  Green's  fascinating  History.  But  is  the 
assumption  sound  ?  When  one  considers  the  strength, 
the  boldness,  the  self-assertion,  the  instincts  of  resistance 
and  independence  in  the  English  nature,  it  is  surely 
hazardous  to  affirm  that  only  by  the  particular  means  of 
the  Puritan  struggle  and  the  Puritan  triumph  could  we 
have  become  free  in  our  persons  and  property.  When 
we  consider  the  character  shown,  the  signal  given,  in  the 
thinking  of  Thomas  More  and  Shakspeare,  of  Bacon 
and  Harvey,  how  shall  we  say  that  only  at  the  price  of 
Puritanism  could  England  have  had  free  thought  ?  When 
we  consider  the  seriousness  of  Spenser,  that  ideal  Puritan 
before  the  fanatical  Puritans  and  without  their  faults  ; 
when  we  consider  Spenser's  seriousness  and  pureness,  in 
their  revolt  against  the  moral  disorder  of  the  Renascence, 
and  remember  the  allies  which  they  had  in  the  native 

H 


98  Politics  and  Society. 


integrity  and  piety  of  the  English  race,  shall  we  even 
venture  to  say  that  only  at  the  price  of  Puritanism  could 
we  have  had  seriousness  ?  Puritanism  has  been  one 
element  in  our  seriousness  ;  but  it  is  not  the  whole  of 
our  seriousness,  nor  the  best  in  it. — Mixed  Essays. 

MR.    SMITH. 

The  newspapers  a  short  time  ago  contained  an  account 
of  the  suicide  of  a  Mr.  Smith,  secretary  to  some  insurance 
company  or  other,  who,  it  was  said,  '  laboured  under  the 
apprehension  that  he  would  come  to  poverty,  and  that  he 
was  eternally  lost.'  And  when  I  read  these  words,  it 
occurred  to  me  that  the  poor  man  who  came  to  such  a 
mournful  end  was,  in  truth,  a  kind  of  type,—  by  the  selec- 
tion of  his  two  grand  objects  of  concern,  by  their  isola- 
tion from  everything  else,  and  their  juxtaposition  to  one 
another, — of  all  the  strongest,  most  respectable,  and  most 
representative  part  of  our  nation.  '  He  laboured  under  the 
apprehension  that  he  would  come  to  poverty,  and  that  he 
was  eternally  lost.'  The  whole  middle-class  have  a  con- 
ception of  things, — a  conception  which  makes  us  call 
them  Philistines, — just  like  that  of  this  poor  man  ;  though 
we  are  seldom,  of  course,  shocked  by  seeing  it  take  the 
distressing,  violently  morbid,  and  fatal  turn,  which  it 
took  with  him.  But  how  generally,  with  how  many  of 
us,  are  the  main  concerns  of  life  limited  to  these  two  : 
the  concern  for  making  money,  and  the  concern  for  saving 


Mr.  Smith.  99 

our  souls  !  And  how  entirely  does  the  narrow  and  me- 
chanical conception  of  our  secular  business  proceed  from 
a  narrow  and  mechanical  conception  of  our  religious 
business.  What  havoc  do  the  united  conceptions  make 
of  our  lives  ! — Culture  and  Anarchy. 

OUR   COAL. 

Every  one  must  have   observed   the   strange   language 
current  during  the  late   discussions   as  to  the  possible 
failure  of  our  supplies  of  coal.     Our  coal,  thousands  of 
people  were  saying,  is  the  real  basis  of  our  national  great- 
ness ;  if  our  coal  runs  short,  there  is  an  end  of  the  great- 
ness of  England.     But  what  is  greatness  ? — culture  makes 
us  ask.     Greatness  is  a  spiritual  condition  worthy  to  ex- 
cite love,  interest,  and  admiration  ;  and  the  outward  proof 
of  possessing  greatness  is,  that  we  excite  love,  interest, 
and  admiration.     If  England  were  swallowed  up  by  the 
sea  to-morrow,  which  of  the  two,  a  hundred  years  hence, 
would  most  excite  the  love,  interest,  and  admiration  of 
mankind, — would  most,  therefore,  show  the  evidences  of 
having  possessed   greatness, — the   England   of  the   last 
twenty  years,  or  the  England  of  Elizabeth,  of  a  time  of 
splendid   spiritual  effort,  but   when   our   coal,  and   our 
industrial  operations  depending  on  coal,  were  very  little 
developed  ?     Well,  then,  what  an  unsound  habit  of  mind 
it  must  be  which  makes  us  talk  of  things  like  coal  or  iron 
as  constituting  the  greatness  of  England,  and  how  salu- 

H  2 


I  oo  Politics  and  Society. 

tary  a  friend  is  culture,  bent  on  seeing  things  as  they  are, 
and  thus  dissipating  delusions  of  this  kind  and  fixing 
standards  of  perfection  that  are  real  ! — Culture  and 
Anarchy. 

FREE   TRADE. 

All  our  fellow-men,  in  the  East  of  London  and  else- 
where, we  must  take  along  with  us  in  the  progress  to- 
wards perfection,  if  we  ourselves  really,  as  we  profess, 
want  to  be  perfect  ;  and  we  must  not  let  the  worship  of 
any  fetish,  any  machinery,  such  as  manufactures  or  popu- 
lation,— which  are  not,  like  perfection,  absolute  goods  in 
themselves,  though  we  think  them  so, — create  for  us  such 
a  multitude  of  miserable,  sunken,  and  ignorant  human 
beings,  that  to  carry  them  all  along  with  us  is  impossible 
and  perforce  they  must  for  the  most  part  be  left  by  us  in 
their  degradation  and  wretchedness.  But  evidently  the 
conception  of  free-trade,  on  which  our  liberal  friends 
vaunt  themselves,  and  in  which  they  think  they  have 
found  the  secret  of  national  prosperity, — evidently,  I  say, 
the  mere  unfettered  pursuit  of  the  production  of  wealth, 
and  the  mere  mechanical  multiplying,  for  this  end,  of 
manufactures  and  population,  threatens  to  create  for  us, 
if  it  has  not  created  already,  those  vast,  miserable,  un- 
manageable masses  of  sunken  people,  to  the  existence  of 
which  we  are,  I  repeat,  absolutely  forbidden  to  reconcile 
ourselves,   in  spite   of  all   that   the   philosophy   of  the 


Free  Trade.  loi 


'  Times  '  and  the  poetry  of  Mr.   Robert  Buchanan  may 
say  to  persuade  us. — Culture  and  Anarchy. 

SWEETNESS  AND    LIGHT. 

The  Greek  word  evfvia,  a  finely  tempered  nature,  gives 
exactly  the  notion  of  perfection  as  culture  brings  us  to 
conceive  it  :  a  harmonious   perfection,  a  perfection   in 
which  the  characters  of  beauty  and  intelligence  are  both 
present,  which  unites  'the  two  noblest  of  things,' — as 
Swift,  who  of  one  of  the  two,  at  any  rate,  had  himself  all 
too  little,  most  happily  calls  them  in  his  'Battle  of  the  Books,' 
— 'the  two  noblest  of  things,  sweetness  and  light.''     The 
fi»(/.u/ic,  I  say,  is  the  man  who  tends  towards  sweetness 
and  light ;  the  a^v//c,  on  the  other  hand,  is  our  Philistine. 
The  immense  spiritual  significance  of  the  Greeks  is  due 
to  their  having  been  inspired  with  this  central  and  happy 
idea  of  the  essential  character  of  human  perfection  ;  and 
Mr.  Bright's  misconception  of  culture,  as  a  smattering  of 
Greek  and  Latin,  comes  itself,  after  all,  from  this  won- 
derful significance  of  the  Greeks  having  affected  the  very 
machinery  of  our  education,  and  is  in  itself  a  kind  of 
homage  to  it. — Culture  ajid  Anarchy. 

ATHENIAN  CULTURE. 

A  FINE  culture  is  the  complement  of  a  high  reason, 
and  it  is  in  the  conjunction  of  both  with  character,  with 
energy,  that  the  ideal  for  men  and  nations  is  to  be  placed. 


I02  Politics  and  Society. 

It  is  common  to  hear  remarks  on  the  frequent  divorce 
between  culture  and  character,  and  to  infer  from  this 
that  culture  is  a  mere  varnish,  and  that  character  only 
deserves  any  serious  attention.  No  error  can  be  more 
fatal.  Culture  without  character  is,  no  doubt,  something 
frivolous,  vain,  and  weak  ;  but  character  without  culture  is, 
on  the  other  hand,  something  raw,  blind,  and  dangerous. 
The  most  interesting,  the  most  truly  glorious  peoples,  are 
those  in  which  the  alliance  of  the  two  has  been  effected 
most  successfully,  and  its  result  spread  most  ■ividely. 
This  is  why  the  spectacle  of  ancient  Athens  has  such 
profound  interest  for  a  rational  man ;  that  it  is  the 
spectacle  of  the  culture  of  a  people.  It  is  not  an  aristo- 
cracy, leavening  with  its  own  high  spirit  the  multitude 
which  it  wields,  but  leaving  it  the  unformed  multitude 
still ;  it  is  not  a  democracy,  acute  and  energetic,  but 
tasteless,  narrow-minded,  and  ignoble ;  it  is  the  middle 
and  lower  classes  in  the  highest  development  of  their 
humanity  that  these  classes  have  yet  reached.  It  was 
the  many  who  relished  those  arts,  who  were  not  satisfied 
with  less  than  those  monuments.  In  the  conversations 
recorded  by  Plato,  or  even  by  the  matter-of-fact  Xeno- 
phon,  which  for  the  free  yet  refined  discussion  of  ideas 
have  set  the  tone  for  the  whole  cultivated  world,  shop- 
keepers and  tradesmen  of  Athens  mingle  as  speakers. 
For  any  one  but  a  pedant,  this  is  why  a  handful  of 
Athenians  of  two  thousand  years  ago  are  more  interesting 


Athe7iian  Ctilture.  103 

than  the  millions  of  most  nations  our  contemporaries. 
Surely,  if  they  knew  this,  those  friends  of  progress,  who 
have  confidently  pronounced  the  remains  of  the  ancient 
world  to  be  so  much  lumber,  and  a  classical  education 
an  aristocratic  impertinence,  might  be  inclined  to  recon- 
sider their  sentence. — Mixed  Essays. 

FIRE  AND  STRENGTH. 

It  is  not  at  this  moment  true,  what  the  majority  of  people 
tell  us,  that  the  world  wants  fire  and  strength  more  than 
sweetness  and  light,  and  that  things  are  for  the  most  part 
to  be  settled  first  and  understood  afterwards.  How 
much  of  our  present  perplexities  and  confusion  this  un- 
true notion  has  caused  already,  and  is  tending  still  to 
perpetuate  !  Therefore  the  true  business  of  the  friends  of 
culture  now  is,  to  dissipate  this  false  notion,  to  spread 
the  belief  in  right  reason  and  in  a  firm  intelligible  law  of 
things,  and  to  get  men  to  try,  in  preference  to  staunchly 
acting  with  imperfect  knowledge,  to  obtain  some  sounder 
basis  of  knowledge  on  which  to  act.  This  is  what  the 
friends  and  lovers  of  culture  have  to  do,  however  the 
believers  in  action  may  grow  impatient  with  us  for  saying 
so,  and  may  insist  on  our  lending  a  hand  to  their  prac- 
tical operations  and  showing  a  commendable  interest  in 
them. — Culture  and  Anarchy. 


1 04  Politics  and  Society. 


ANTI-POLITICS. 

It  is  our  business,  as  we  have  seen,  to  get  the  present 
beUevers  in  action,  and  lovers  of  political  talking  and 
doing,  to  make  a  return  upon  their  own  minds,  scrutinise 
their  stock  notions  and  habits  much  more,  value  their 
present  talking  and  doing  much  less  ;  in  order  that,  by 
learning  to  think  more  clearly,  they  may  come  at  last  to 
act  less  confusedly.  But  how  shall  we  persuade  our  Bar- 
barian to  hold  lightly  to  his  feudal  usages  ;  how  shall  we 
persuade  our  Nonconformist  that  his  time  spent  in  agi- 
tating for  the  abolition  of  church-establishments  would 
have  been  better  spent  in  getting  worthier  ideas  of  God 
and  the  ordering  of  the  world,  or  his  time  spent  in  battling 
for  voluntaryism  in  education  better  spent  in  learning  to 
value  and  found  a  public  and  national  culture  ;  how  shall 
we  persuade,  finally,  our  Alderman-Colonel  not  to  be 
content  with  sitting  in  the  hall  of  judgment  or  marching 
at  the  head  of  his  men  of  war,  without  some  knowledge 
how  to  perform  judgment  and  how  to  direct  men  of 
war, — how,  I  say,  shall  we  persuade  all  these  of  this,  if 
our  Alderman-Colonel  can  say  that  we  want  to  get  his 
leading-staff  and  his  scales  of  justice  for  our  own  hands  ; 
or  the  Nonconformist,  that  we  want  for  ourselves  his 
platform  ;  or  the  Barbarian,  that  we  want  for  ourselves 
his  pre-eminency  and  function  ?  Certainly  they  will 
be  less  slow  to   believe,  as  wc  want  them  to  believe, 


A  n  ti- Politics.  i  o  5 


that  the  intelligible  law  of  things  has  in  itself  something 
desirable  and  precious,  and  that  all  place,  function,  and 
bustle  are  hollow  goods  without  it,  if  .they  see  that  we 
ourselves  can  content  ourselves  with  this  law  and  find 
in  it  our  satisfaction,  without  making  it  an  instrument 
to  give  us  for  ourselves  place,  function,  and  bustle. 

At  this  exciting  juncture,  then,  while  so  many  of  the 
lovers  of  new  ideas,  somewhat  weary,  as  we  too  are,  of 
the  stock  performances  of  our  Liberal  friends  upon  the 
political  stage,  are  disposed  to  rush  valiantly  upon  this 
public  stage  themselves,  we  cannot  at  all  think  that  for 
a  wise  lover  of  new  ideas  this  stage  is  the  fitting  place. 
Plenty  of'  people  there  will  be  without  us, — country 
gentlemen  in  search  of  a  club,  demagogues  in  search  of 
a  tub,  lawyers  in  search  of  a  post,  industrialists  in  search 
of  gentility,  -  who  will  come  from  the  east  and  from  the 
west,  and  will  sit  down  at  that  Thyestean  banquet  of 
clap-trap  which  English  public  life  for  these  many  years 
past  has  been.  So  long  as  those  old  organisations,  of 
which  we  have  seen  the  insufficiency, — those  expres- 
sions of  our  ordinary  self.  Barbarian  or  Philistine,— have 
force  anywhere,  they  will  have  force  in  Parliament.  There 
the  man  whom  the  Barbarians  send,  cannot  but  be  im- 
pelled to  please  the  Barbarians'  ordinary  self,  and  their 
natural  taste  for  the  bathos  ;  and  the  man  whom  the 
Philistines  send  cannot  but  be  impelled  to  please  those 
of  the  Philistines.     But  through  the  length  and  breadth 


1 06  Politics  and  Society. 

of  our  nation  a  sense,  — vague  and  obscure  as  yet, — of 
weariness  with  the  old  organisations,  of  desire  for  their 
transformation,  works  and  grows.  In  the  House  of 
Commons  the  old  organisations  must  inevitably,  as  I 
have  already  urged,  be  most  enduring  and  strongest,  the 
transformation  must  inevitably  be  longest  in  showing 
itself ;  and  it  may  truly  be  averred,  therefore,  that  at  the 
present  juncture  the  centre  of  movement  is  not  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  It  is  in  the  fermenting  mind  of 
the  nation  ;  and  his  is  for  the  next  twenty  years  the  real 
influence  who  can  address  himself  to  this. 

Every  one  is  now  boasting  of  what  he  has  done  to 
educate  men's  minds  and  to  give  things  the  course  they 
are  taking.     Mr.  Disraeli  educates,  Mr.  Bright  educates, 
Mr.  Beales  educates.     We,  indeed,  pretend  to  educate 
no  one,  for  we  are  still  engaged  in  trying  to  clear  and 
educate  ourselves.     But  we  are  sure  that  the  endeavour 
to   reach,   through   culture,  the   firm  intelligible  law  of 
things,  we  are  sure  that  the  detaching  ourselves  from  our 
stock  notions  and  habits,  that  a  more  free  play  of  con- 
sciousness, an  increased  desire  for  sweetness  and  light, 
and  all  the  bent  which  we  call  Hellenising,  is  the  master- 
impulse   even   now   of  the   life   of   our   nation  and  of 
humanity, — somewhat  obscurely  perhaps  for  this  actual 
moment,  but  decisively  and  certainly  for  the  immediate 
future  ;  and  that  those  who  work  for  this  are  the  sove- 
reign educators.     Docile  echoes   of  the   eternal  voice, 


A  nti-Politics.  i  o  7 


pliant  organs  of  the  infinite  will,  such  workers  are  going 
along  with  the  essential  movement  of  the  world  ;  and 
this  is  their  strength,  and  their  happy  and  divine  fortune. — 
Culture  and  Anarchy. 

THE  SPOTTED  DOG. 

The  old  recipe,  to  think  a  little  more  and  bustle  a  little 
less,  seems  to  me  still  the  best  recipe  to  follow.  So  I 
take  comfort  when  I  find  the  '  Guardian '  reproaching  me 
with  having  no  influence  ;  for  I  know  what  influence 
means, — a  party,  practical  proposals,  action  ;  and  I  say 
to  myself :  '  Even  supposing  I  could  get  some  followers, 
and  assemble  them,  brimming  with  affectionate  enthu- 
siasm, in  a  committee-room  at  some  inn  ;  what  on  earth 
should  I  say  to  them  ?  Avhat  resolutions  could  I  propose  ? 
I  could  only  propose  the  old  Socratic  commonplace, 
Know  thyself ;  and  how  black  they  would  all  look  at 
that  ! '  No  ;  to  inquire,  perhaps  too  curiously,  what 
that  present  state  of  English  development  and  civilisation 
is,  which  according  to  Mr.  Lowe  is  so  perfect  that  to 
give  votes  to  the  working  class  is  stark  madness  ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  be  less  sanguine  about  the  divine 
and  saving  eff'ect  of  a  vote  on  its  possessor  than  my 
friends  in  the  committee-room  at  the  '  Spotted  Dog,' — 
that  is  my  inevitable  portion.  To  bring  things  under  the 
light  of  one's  intelligence,  to  see  how  they  look  there,  to 
accustom  oneself  simply  to  regard  the  Marylebone  Vestry, 


1 08  Politics  and  Society. 

or  the  Educational  Home,  or  our  Divorce  Court,  or  our 
gin-palaces  open  on  Sunday  and  the  Crystal  Palace  shut, 
as  absurdities, — that  is,  I  am  sure,  invaluable  exercise 
for  us  just  at  present.  Let  all  persist  in  it  who  can, 
and  steadily  set  their  desires  on  introducing,  with  time, 
a  little  more  soul  and  spirit  into  the  too,  too  solid  flesh 
of  English  society. — Friendship's  Garland. 

YOUNG  LIBERALS. 

Because  machinery  is  the  one  concern  of  our  actual 
politics,  and  an  inward  working,  and  not  machinery,  is 
what  v.'e  most  want,  we  keep  advismg  our  ardent  young 
Liberal  friends  to  think  less  of  machinery,  to  stand  more 
aloof  from  the  arena  of  politics  at  present,  and  rather  to 
try  and  promote,  with  us,  an  inward  working.  They  do 
not  listen  to  us,  and  they  rush  into  the  arena  of  politics, 
where  their  merits,  indeed,  seem  to  be  little  appreciated 
as  yet;  and  then  they  complain  of  the  reformed  consti- 
tuencies, and  call  the  new  Parliament  a  Philistine  Parlia- 
ment. As  if  a  nation,  nourished  and  reared  as  ours  has 
been,  could  give  us,  just  yet,  anything  but  a  PhiUstine 
Parliament  ! — and  would  a  Barbarian  Parliament  be  even 
so  good,  or  a  Populace  Parliament  ?  For  our  part,  we 
rejoice  to  see  our  dear  old  friends,  the  Hebraising  Philis- 
tines, gathered  in  force  in  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat  pre- 
vious to  their  final  conversion,  which  will  certainly  come. 
But,  to  attain  this  conversion,  we  must  not  try  to  oust 


Young  Liberals.  109 

them  from  their  places  and  to  contend  for  machinery  with 
them  ;  no,  we  must  work  on  them  inwardly  and  cure  their 
spirit.  Ousted  they  will  not  be,  but  transformed.  Ousted 
they  do  not  deserve  to  be,  and  will  not  be. — Cidtvre  and 
Anarchy. 

HUMANE  INDIVIDUALS. 

In  each  class  there  are  born  a  certain  number  of  na- 
tures with  a  curiosity  about  their  best  self,  with  a  bent 
for  seeing  things  as  they  are,  for  disentangling  themselves 
from  machinery,  for  simply  concerning  themselves  with 
leason  and  the  will  of  God,  and  doing  their  best  to  make 
these  prevail  ; — for  the  pursuit,  in  a  word,  of  perfection. 
To  certain  manifestations  of  this  love  for  perfection  man- 
kind have  accustomed  themselves  to  give  the  name  of 
genius  ;  implying  by  this  name,  something  original  and 
heaven-bestowed  in  the  passion.  But  the  passion  is  to 
be  found  far  beyond  those  manifestations  of  it  to  which 
the  world  usually  gives  the  name  of  genius,  and  in  which 
there  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  talent  of  some  kind  or  other, 
a  special  and  striking  faculty  of  execution  informed  by 
the  heaven-bestowed  ardour,  or  genius.  It  is  to  be  found 
in  many  manifestations  besides  these,  and  may  best  be 
called,  as  we  have  called  it,  the  love  and  pursuit  of  per- 
fection ;  culture  being  the  true  nurse  of  the  pursuing  love, 
and  sweetness  and  light  the  true  characters  of  the  pursued 
perfection.     Natures  with  this  bent  emerge  in  all  classes, 


no  Politics  and  Society. 

— among  the  Barbarians,  among  the  Philistines,  among 
the  Populace.  And  this  bent  always  tends  to  take  them 
out  of  their  class,  and  to  make  their  distinguishing  cha- 
racteristic not  their  Barbarianism  or  their  Philistinism, 
but  their  humnuity.  They  have,  in  general,  a  rough  time 
of  it  in  their  lives  ;  but  they  are  sown  more  abundantly 
than  one  might  think,  they  appear  where  and  when  one 
least  expects  it,  they  set  up  a  fire  which  enfilades,  so  to 
speak,  the  class  with  which  they  are  ranked  ;  and,  in 
general,  by  the  extrication  of  their  best  self  as  the  self  to 
develope,  and  by  the  simplicity  of  the  ends  fixed  by  them 
as  paramount,  they  hinder  the  unchecked  predominance 
of  that  class-life  which  is  the  affirmation  of  our  ordinary 
self,  and  seasonably  disconcert  mankind  in  their  worship 
of  machinery. 

Therefore,  when  we  speak  of  ourselves  as  divided  into 
Barbarians,  Philistines,  and  Populace,  we  must  be  under- 
stood always  to  imply  that  within  each  of  these  classes 
there  are  a  certain  number  of  aliens,  if  we  may  so  call 
them, — persons  who  are  mainly  led,  not  by  their  class 
spirit,  but  by  a  general  Jmmane  spirit,  by  the  love  of 
human  perfection  ;  and  that  this  number  is  capable  of 
being  diminished  or  augmented. — Culture  and  Anarchy. 


The  Social  Idea.  1 1 1 


THE   GREATEST  HAPPINESS   OF  THE 
GREATEST  NUMBER. 

The  well-being  of  the  many  comes  out  more  and  more 
distinctly,  in  proportion  as  time  goes  on,  as  the  object 
we  must  pursue.  An  individual  or  a  class,  concentrating 
their  efforts  upon  their  own  well-being  exclusively,  do 
but  beget  troubles  both  for  others  and  for  themselves 
also.  No  individual  life  can  be  truly  prosperous,  passed, 
as  Obermann  says,  in  the  midst  of  men  who  suffer  ; 
passke  au  tnilieu  des  generations  qui  souffretif.  To  the 
noble  soul,  it  cannot  be  happy  ;  to  the  ignoble,  it  cannot 
be  secure.  Socialistic  and  communistic  schemes  have 
generally,  however,  a  fatal  defect;  they  are  content  with 
too  low  and  material  a  standard  of  well-being.  That 
instinct  of  perfection,  which  is  the  master-power  in 
humanity,  always  rebels  at  this,  and  frustrates  the  work. 
Many  are  to  be  made  partakers  of  well-being,  true  ;  but 
the  ideal  of  well-being  is  not  to  be,  on  that  account, 
lowered  and  coarsened.  — Mixed  Essays. 

THE  SOCIAL  IDEA. 

Culture  looks  beyond  machinery,  culture  hates  hatred  ; 
culture  has  one  great  passion,  the  passion  for  sweetness 
and  light.  It  has  one  even  yet  greater  ! — the  passion  for 
making  them  prevail.  It  is  not  satisfied  till  we  all  come 
to  a  perfect  man  ;  it  knows  that  the  sweetness  and  light 


112  Politics  and  Society. 


of  the  few  must  be  imperfect  until  the  raw  and  unkindled 
masses  of  humanity  are  touched  with  sweetness  and  light. 
If  I  have  not  shrunk  from  saying  that  we  must  work  for 
sweetness  and  light,  so  neither  have  I  shrunk  from  saying 
that  we  must  have  a  broad  basis,  must  have  sweetness 
and  light  for  as  many  as  possible.     Again  and  again  I 
have   insisted   how   those   are   the   happy   moments   of 
humanity,  how  those  are  the  marking  epochs  of  a  people's 
life,  how  those  are  the  flowering  times  for  literature  and 
art  and  all  the  creative  power  of  genius,  when  there  is  a 
tiational  glow  of  life  and  thought,  when  the  whole  of 
society  is  in  the  fullest  measure  permeated  by  thought, 
sensible  to  beauty,  intelligent  and  alive.     Only  it  must  be 
real  thought  and  real  beauty  ;  real  sweetness  and  real 
light.     Plenty  of  people  will  try  to  give  the  masses,  as 
they  call  them,  an  intellectual  food  prepared  and  adapted 
in  the  way  they  think  proper  for  the  actual  condition  of 
the  masses.     The  ordinary  popular  literature  is  an  ex- 
ample of  this  way  of  working  on  the  masses.     Plenty  of 
people  will  try  to  indoctrinate  the  masses  with  the  set  of 
ideas  and  judgments  constituting  the  creed  of  their  own 
profession  or  party.     Our  religious  and  political  organisa- 
tions give  an  example  of  this  way  of  working  on  the  masses. 
I  condemn  neither  way;  but  culture  works  differently. 
It  does  not  try  to  teach  down  to  the  level  of  inferior 
classes;  it  does  not  try  to  win  them  for  this  or  that  sect 
of  its  own,  with  ready-made  judgments  and  watch-words. 


The  Social  Idea.  1 1 3 


It  seeks  to  do  away  with  classes  and  sects ;  to  make  the 
best  that  has  been  thought  and  known  in  the  world  current 
everywhere  ;  to  make  all  men  live  in  an  atmosphere  of 
sweetness  and  light,  where  they  may  use  ideas,  as  it  uses 
them  itself,  freely, — nourished,  and  not  bound  by  them. 

This  is  the  social  idea  ;  and  the  men  of  culture  are 
the  true  apostles  of  equality. — Culture  and  Anarchy. 

CULTURE. 

The  poor  require  culture  as  much  as  the  rich  ;  and  at 
present  their  education,  even  when  they  get  education, 
gives  them  hardly  anything  of  it.  Yet  hardly  less  of  it, 
perhaps,  than  the  education  of  the  rich  gives  to  the  rich. 
For  when  we  say  that  culture  is  :  To  knoiu  the  best  that 
has  been  thought  and  said  in  the  ^corld,  we  imply  that,  for 
culture,  a  system  directly  tending  to  this  end  is  necessary 
in  our  reading.  Now,  there  is  no  such  system  yet  present 
to  guide  the  reading  of  the  rich,  any  more  than  of  the  poor. 
Such  a  system  is  hardly  even  thought  of  ;  a  man  who 
wants  it  must  make  it  for  himself  And  our  reading 
being  so  without  purpose  as  it  is,  nothing  can  be  truei 
than  what  Butler  says,  that  really,  in  general,  no  part  of 
our  time  is  more  idly  spent  than  the  time  spent  in 
reading. 

Still,  culture  is  indispensably  necessary,  and  culture 
implies  reading  ;  but  reading  with  a  purpose  to  guide  it, 
and  with  system.    He  does  a  good  work  who  does  anything 

I 


1 14  Politics  and  Society. 

to  help  this  ;  indeed,  it  is  the  one  essential  service  now  to 
be  rendered  to  education.  And  the  plea,  that  this  or 
that  man  has  no  time  for  culture,  will  vanish  as  soon  as 
we  desire  culture  so  much  that  we  begin  to  examine 
seriously  our  present  use  of  our  time.  It  has  often  been 
said,  and  cannot  be  said  too  often. :  Give  to  any  man 
all  the  time  that  he  now  wastes,  not  only  on  his  vices 
(when  he  has  them),  but  on  useless  business,  wearisome 
or  deteriorating  amusements,  trivial  letter- writing,  random 
reading  ;  and  he  will  have  plenty  of  time  for  culture. 
'  Die  Zeit  ist  utiendlich  tang,''  says  Goethe  ;  and  so  it 
really  is.  Some  of  us  waste  all  of  it,  most  of  us  waste 
much,  but  all  of  us  waste  some. — Literature  and  Dogma. 

LETTERS  AND    THE  MASSES. 

I  AM  persuaded  that  the  transformation  of  religion,  which 
is  essential  for  its  perpetuance,  can  be  accomplished  only 
by  carrying  the  qualities  of  flexibility,  perceptiveness,  and 
judgment,  which  are  the  best  fruits  of  letters,  to  whole 
classes  of  the  community  which  now  know  next  to 
nothing  of  them,  and  by  procuring  the  application  of 
those  qualities  to  matters  where  they  are  never  applied 
now. — Last  Essays. 

PRIESTHOODS  AND   ARISTOCRACIES. 

The  proud  day  of  priesthoods  and  aristocracies  is  over; 
but  in  their  day  they  have  undoubtedly  been,  as  the  law 


Priesthoods  and  Aristocracies.        115 


was  to  the  Jews,  schoolmasters  to  the  nations  of  Europe, 
schoohiiasters  to  bring  them  to  modern  society  ;— and  so 
dull  a  learner  is  man,  so  rugged  and  hard  to  teach,  that 
perhaps  those  nations  which  keep  their    schoolmasters 
longest  are  the  most  enviable.     The  great  ecclesiastical 
institutions  of  Europe,  with  their  stately  cathedrals,  their 
imposing  ceremonial,  their  affecting  services  ;  the  great 
aristocracies  of  Europe,  with  their  lustre  of  descent,  their 
splendour  of  wealth,  their  reputation  for  grace  and  refine- 
ment,— have  undoubtedly  for  centuries  served  as  ideals 
to  ennoble  and  elevate  the  sentiment  of  the  European 
masses.      Assuredly,    churches   and    aristocracies   often 
lacked  the  sanctity  or  the  refinement  ascribed  to  them. 
But  their  effect  as  distant  ideals  was  still  the  same  ;  they 
remained  above  the  individual,  a  beacon  to  the  imagina- 
tion of  thousands  ;  they  stood,  lofty  and  grand  objects, 
ever  present  before  the  eyes  of  masses  of  men  in  whose 
daily  avocations  there  was  little  which  was  lofty,  little 
which  was  grand  ;  and  they  preserved  these  masses  from 
any  danger  of  over-rating  with  vulgar  self-satisfaction  an 
inferior  culture,  however  broadly  sown,  by  the  exhibition 
of  a  standard  of  dignity  and  refinement  still  far  above 
Xhtxix.—^ Popular  Education  in  France. 

GOOD   OF  ARISTOCRACY. 

One  strong  and  beneficial  influence  a  vigorous  and  high- 
minded  aristocracy  is  calculated  to  exert  upon  a  robust 

1  2 


1 1 6  Politics  and  Society. 

and  sound  people.    I  have  had  occasion,  in  speaking  of 
Homer,  to  say  very  often,  and  with  much  emphasis,  that 
he  is  /;/  the  gratid  style.    It  is  the  chief  virtue  of  a  healthy 
and  uncorrupted  aristocracy,  that  it  is,  in  general,  in  this 
grand  style.     That  elevation  of  character,  that  noble  way 
of  thinking  and  behaving,  which  is  an  eminent  gift  of 
nature  to  some  individuals,  is  also  often  generated  in 
whole  classes   of  men  (at  least  when  these  come  of  a 
strong  and  good  race)  by  the  possession  of  power,  by  the 
importance  and  responsibility  of  high  station,  by  habitual 
dealing  with  great  things,  by  being  placed   above  the 
necessity  of  constantly  struggling  for  little  things.    And  it 
is  the  source  of  great  virtues.     It  may  go  along  with  a 
not  very  quick  or  open  intelligence  ;  but  it  cannot  well 
go  along  with  a  conduct  vulgar  and  ignoble.    A  governing 
class  imbued  with  it  may  not  be  capable  of  intelligently 
leading  the  masses  of  a  people  to  the  highest  pitch  of  wel- 
fare for  them  ;  but  it  sets  them  an  invaluable  example  of 
qualities  without  which  no  really  high  welfare  can  exist. 
This  has  been  done  for  their  nation   by  the  best  aristo- 
cracies.   The  Roman  aristocracy  did  it ;  the  English  aris- 
tocracy has  done  it.    They  each  fostered  in  the  mass  of  the 
peoples  they  governed, — peoples  of  sturdy  moral  constitu- 
tion and  apt  to  learn  such  lessons, — a  greatness  of  spirit, 
the  natural  growth  of  the  condition  of  magnates  and  rulers, 
but  not  the  natural  growth  of  the  condition  of  the  common 
people.     They  made,  the  one  of  the  Roman,  the  other  of 


Good  of  Aristocracy.  1 1 7 

the  English  people,  in  spite  of  all  the  shortcomings  of 
each,  great  peoples,  peoples  in  the  grand  style.  And 
this  they  did,  while  wielding  the  people  according  ro 
their  own  notions,  and  in  the  direction  which  seemed 
good  to  them  ;  not  as  servants  and  instruments  of  the 
people,  but  as  its  commanders  and  heads  ;  solicitous  for 
the  good  of  their  country,  indeed,  but  taking  for  granted 
that  of  that  good  they  themselves  were  the  supreme 
judges,  and  were  to  fix  the  conditions. — Mixed  Essays. 

WEAK  SIDE   OF  ARISTOCRACY. 

It  is  because  aristocracies  almost  inevitably  fail  to  appre- 
ciate justly,  or  even  to  take  into  their  mind,  the  instinct 
pushing  the  masses  towards  expansion  and  fuller  life,  that 
they  lose  their  hold  over  them.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the 
incapacity  of  aristocracies  for  ideas, —  the  secret  of  their 
want  of  success  in  modern  epochs.  The  people  treats  them 
with  flagrant  injustice,  when  it  denies  all  obligation  to  them. 
They  can,  and  often  do,  impart  a  high  spirit,  a  fine  idea, 
of  grandeur,  to  the  people  ;  thus  they  lay  the  foundations 
of  a  great  nation.  But  they  leave  the  people  still  the 
multitude,  the  crowd  ;  they  have  small  belief  in  the 
power  of  the  ideas  which  are  its  life.  Themselves  a 
power  reposing  on  all  which  is  most  solid,  material,  and 
visible,  they  are  slow  to  attach  any  great  importance  to 
influences  impalpable,  spiritual,  and  viewless.  Although, 
therefore,  a  disinterested  looker-on  might  often  be  dis- 


I  [  8  Politics  and  Society. 

posed,  seeing  what  has  actually  been  achieved  by  aristo- 
cracies, to  wish  to  retain  or  replace  them  in  their  pre- 
ponderance, rather  than  commit  a  nation  to  the  hazards 
of  a  new  and  untried  future  ;  yet  the  masses  instinctively 
feel  that  they  can  never  consent  to  this  without  re- 
nouncing the  inmost  impulse  of  their  being  ;  and  th^ 
they  should  make  such  a  renunciation  cannot  seriously 
be  expected  of  them.  Except  on  conditions  which  make 
its  expansion,  in  the  sense  understood  by  itself,  fully 
possible,  democracy  will  never  frankly  ally  itself  with 
aristocracy  ;  and  on  these  conditions  perhaps  no  aristo- 
cracy will  ever  frankly  ally  itself  with  it.  Even  the  Eng- 
lish aristocracy,  so  politic,  so  capable  of  compromises, 
has  shown  no  signs  of  being  able  so  to  transform  itself  as 
to  render  such  an  alliance  possible.  The  reception  given 
by  the  Peers  to  the  bill  for  establishing  life-peerages  was, 
in  this  respect,  of  ill  omen.  The  separation  between 
aristocracy  and  democracy  will  probably,  therefore,  go  on 
still  widening. 

And  it  must  in  fairness  be  added,  that  as  in  one  most 
important  part  of  general  human  culture, — openness  to 
ideas  and  ardour  for  them, — aristocracy  is  less  advanced 
than  democracy,  to  replace  or  keep  the  latter  under  the 
tutelage  of  the  former  would  on  the  whole  be  actually 
unfavourable  to  the  progress  of  the  world.  At  epochs 
when  new  ideas  are  powerfully  fermentmg  in  a  society, 
and  profoundly  changing  its  spirit,  aristocracies,  as  they 


Weak  Side  of  Aristocracy.  1 19 

are  in  general  not  long  suffered  to  guide  it  without  ques- 
tion, so  are  they  by  nature  not  well  fitted  to  guide  it 
intelligently. — Mixed  Essays. 

ARISTOCRACIES  IN  EPOCHS  OF  EXPANSION. 

Aristocracies,  those  children  of  the  established  fact, 
are  for  epochs  of  concentration.  In  epochs  of  expansion, 
epochs  such  as  that  in  which  we  now  live,  epochs  when 
always  the  warning  voice  is  again  heard,  Noiv  is  the 
judgment  of  this  world, — in  such  epochs  aristocracies 
with  their  natural  clinging  to  the  established  fact,  their 
want  of  sense  for  the  flux  of  things,  for  the  inevitable 
transitoriness  of  all  human  institutions,  are  bewildered 
and  helpless.  Their  serenity,  their  high  spirit,  their 
power  of  haughty  resistance, — the  great  qualities  of  an 
aristocracy,  and  the  secret  of  its  distinguished  manners 
and  dignity, — these  very  qualities,  in  an  epoch  of  ex- 
pansion, turn  against  their  possessors.  Again  and  again 
I  have  said  how  the  refinement  of  an  aristocracy  may 
be  precious  and  educative  to  a  raw  nation  as  a  kind  of 
shadow  of  true  refinement  ;  how  its  serenity  and  dig- 
nified freedom  from  petty  cares  may  serve  as  a  useful 
foil  to  set  off  the  vulgarity  and  hideousness  of  that  type 
of  life  which  a  hard  middle  class  tends  to  establish,  and 
to  help  people  to  see  this  vulgarity  and  hideousness  in 
their  true  colours.  But  the  true  grace  and  serenity  is  that 
of  which  Greece  and  Greek  art  suggest  the  admirable 


1 20  Politics  and  Society. 

ideals  of  perfection,— a  serenity  which  comes  from  having 
made  order  among  ideas  and  harmonised  them  ;  whereas 
the  serenity  of  aristocracies,  at  least  the  peculiar  serenity 
of  aristocracies  of  Teutonic  origin,  appears  to  come  from 
their  never  having  had  any  ideas  to  trouble  them.  And 
so,  in  a  time  of  expansion  like  the  present,  a  time  for 
ideas,  one  gets,  perhaps,  in  regarding  an  aristocracy,  even 
more  than  the  idea  of  serenity,  the  idea  of  futility  and 
sterility. 

One  has  often  wondered  whether  upon  the  whole 
earth  there  is  anything  so  unintelligent,  so  unapt  to 
oerceive  how  the  world  is  really  going,  as  an  ordinary 
young  Englishman  of  our  upper  class.  Ideas  he  has  not, 
and  neither  has  he  that  seriousness  of  our  middle  class, 
which  is,  as  I  have  often  said,  the  great  strength  of  this 
class,  and  may  become  its  salvation.  Why,  a  man  may 
hear  a  young  Dives  of  the  aristocratic  class,  when  the 
whim  takes  him  to  sing  the  praises  of  wealth  and  material 
comfort,  sing  them  with  a  cynicism  from  which  the  con- 
science of  the  veriest  Philistine  of  our  industrial  middle 
class  would  recoil  in  affright.  And  when,  with  the  natural 
sympathy  of  aristocracies  for  firm  dealing  with  the  mul- 
titude, and  his  uneasiness  at  our  feeble  dealing  with  it  at 
home,  an  unvarnished  young  Englishman  of  our  aristo- 
cratic class  applauds  the  absolute  rulers  on  the  Continent, 
he  in  general  manages  completely  to  miss  the  grounds 
of  reason  and  intelligence  which  alone  can  give  any  colour 


A  ristocracies  in  Epochs  of  Expansioji.  121 

of  justification,  any  possibility  of  existence,  to  those  rulers, 
and  applauds  them  on  grounds  which  it  would  make 
their  own  hair  stand  on  end  to  listen  to. — Culture  and 
Anarchy. 

DEMOCRATIC  EQUALITY. 

For  its  seeking  after  equality,  democracy  is  often,  in  this 
country  above  all,  vehemently  and  scornfully  blamed  ; 
its  temper  contrasted  with  that  worthier  temper  which 
can  magnanimously  endure  social  distinctions  ;  its  opera- 
tions all  referred,  as  of  course,  to  the  stirrings  of  a  base 
and  malignant  envy.  No  doubt  there  is  a  gross  and 
vulgar  spirit  of  envy,  prompting  the  hearts  of  many  of 
those  who  cry  for  equality.  No  doubt  there  are  ignoble 
natures  which  prefer  equality  to  liberty.  But  what  we 
have  to  ask  is,  when  the  life  of  democracy  is  admitted  as 
something  natural  and  inevitable,  whether  this  or  that 
product  of  democracy  is  a  necessary  growth  from  its 
parent  stock,  or  merely  an  excrescence  upon  it.  If  it  be 
the  latter,  certainly  it  may  be  due  to  the  meanest  and 
most  culpable  passions.  But  if  it  be  the  former,  then 
this  product,  however  base  and  blameworthy  the  passions 
which  it  may  sometimes  be  made  to  serve,  can  in  itself 
be  no  more  reprehensible  than  the  vital  impulse  of  demo- 
cracy is  in  itself  reprehensible  ;  and  this  impulse  is,  as 
has  been  shown,  identical  with  the  ceaseless  vital  effort 
of  human  nature  itself. 


122  Politics  and  Society. 

Now,  can  it  be  denied,  that  a  certain  approach  to 
equality,  at  any  rate  a  certain  reduction  of  signal  inequa- 
lities, is  a  natural,  instinctive  demand  of  that  impulse 
which  drives  society  as  a  whole, — no  longer  individuals 
and  limited  classes  only,  but  the  mass  of  a  community, — 
to  develope  itself  with  the  utmost  possible  fulness  and 
freedom  ?  Can  it  be  denied,  that  to  live  in  a  society  of 
equals  tends  in  general  to  make  a  man's  spirits  expand, 
and  his  faculties  work  easily  and  actively  ;  while,  to  live 
in  a  society  of  superiors,  although  it  may  occasionally  be 
a  very  good  discipline,  yet  in  general  tends  to  tame  the 
spirits  and  to  make  the  play  of  the  faculties  less  secure 
and  active  ?  Can  it  be  denied,  that  to  be  heavily  over- 
shadowed, to  be  profoundly  insignificant,  has,  on  the 
whole,  a  depressing  and  benumbing  effect  on  the  cha- 
racter ?  I  know  that  some  individuals  react  against  the 
strongest  impediments,  and  owe  success  and  greatness  to 
the  efforts  which  they  are  thus  forced  to  make.  But  the 
question  is  not  about  individuals.  The  question  is  about 
the  common  bulk  of  mankind,  persons  without  extraordi- 
nary gifts  or  exceptional  energy,  and  who  will  ever  require, 
in  order  to  make  the  best  of  themselves,  encouragement 
and  directly  favouring  circumstances.  Can  any  one 
deny,  that  for  these  the  spectacle,  when  they  would  rise, 
of  a  condition  of  splendour,  grandeur,  and  culture,  which 
they  cannot  possibly  reach,  has  the  effect  of  making 
them  flag  in  spirit,  and  of  disposing  them  to  sink  de- 


Democratic  Eqttality.  123 

spondingly  back  into  their  own  condition  ?  Can  any 
one  deny,  that  the  knowledge  how  poor  and  insignificant 
the  best  condition  of  improvement  and  culture  attainable 
by  them  must  be  esteemed  by  a  class  incomparably 
richer-endowed,  tends  to  cheapen  this  modest  possible 
amelioration  in  the  account  of  those  classes  also  for 
whom  it  would  be  relatively  a  real  progress,  and  to  disen 
chant  their  imaginations  with  it  ?  It  seems  to  me  im- 
possible to  deny  this.  And  therefore  a  philosophic 
observer,'  with  no  love  for  democracy,  but  rather  with  a 
terror  of  it,  has  been  constrained  to  remark,  that  'the 
common  people  is  more  uncivilised  in  aristocratic  coun- 
tries than  in  any  others  ; '  because  there  '  the  lowly  and 
the  poor  feel  themselves,  as  it  were,  overwhelmed  with 
the  weight  of  their  own  inferiority.'  He  has  been  con 
strained  to  remark, ^  that  'there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  manly 
and  legitimate  passion  for  equality,  prompting  men  to 
desire  to  be,  all  of  them,  in  the  enjoyment  of  power  and 
consideration.'  And,  in  France,  that  very  equality,  which 
is  by  us  so  impetuously  decried,  while  it  has  by  no  means 

'  M.  de  Tocqueville.  See  his  Democratic  ctt  Ameriqiie  (edit,  of 
1835),  vol.  i,  p.  II.  '  Le  peuple  est  plus  grossier  dans  les  pays 
aristocratiques  que  partout  ailleurs.  Dans  ces  lieux,  ou  se  rencon- 
trent  des  hommes  si  forts  et  si  riclies,  les  faibles  et  les  pauvies  se 
sentent  comme  accables  de  leur  bassesse  ;  ne  decouvrant  aucun  point 
par  lequel  ils  puissent  regagner  I'egalite,  ils  desesperent  entierement 
d'eux-memes,  et  se  laissent  tomber  au-dessous  de  la  dignite  hu- 
maine.' 

^  Democratie  en  Ameriquc,  vol.  i,  p.  60. 


1 24  Politics  and  Society. 

improved  (it  is  said)  the  upper  classes  of  French  society, 
has  undoubtedly  given  to  the  lower  classes,  to  the  body 
of  the  common  people,  a  self-respect,  an  enlargement  of 
spirit,  a  consciousness  of  counting  for  something  in  their 
country's  action,  which  has  raised  them  in  the  scale  of 
humanity.  The  common  people,  in  France,  seems  to 
me  the  soundest  part  of  the  French  nation.  They  seem 
to  me  more  free  from  the  two  opposite  degradations  of 
multitudes,  brutality  and  servility,  to  have  a  more  deve- 
loped human  life,  more  of  what  distinguishes  elsewhere 
the  cultured  classes  from  the  vulgar,  than  the  common 
people  in  any  other  country  with  which  I  am  acquainted. — 
Mixed  Essays. 

FRUITS  OF  INEQUALITY. 

Surely  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  shortcomings  in  our 
English  civilisation  are  due  to  our  inequality  ;  or,  in  other 
words,  that  the  great  inequality  of  classes  and  property, 
which  came  to  us  from  the  Middle  Age  and  which  we 
maintain  because  we  have  the  religion  of  inequality, — that 
this  constitution  of  things,  I  say,  has  the  natural  and 
necessary  effect,  under  present  circumstances,  of  material- 
ising our  upper  class,  vulgarising  our  middle  class,  and 
brutalising  our  lower  class.  And  this  is  to  fail  in  civilisa- 
tion.— Mixed  Essays. 


Om^  Middle-class  n  dtica  tio7i.  125 


ARMINIUS  ON   THE.  MIDDLE-CLASS  ERA. 

*The  era  of  aristocracies  is  over,'  said  Arminius;  'nations 
must  now  stand  or  fall  by  the  intelligence  of  their  middle 
class  and  their  people.  The  people  with  you  is  still  an 
embryo ;  no  one  can  yet  quite  say  what  it  will  come  to. 
You  lean,  therefore,  with  your  whole  weight  upon  the  intel- 
ligence of  your  middle  class.  And  intelligence,  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word,  your  middle  class  has  absolutely 
none.' — Friendship's  Garland. 

OUR  MIDDLE-CLASS  EDUCATION. 

Neither  is  the  secondary  and  superior  instruction  given 
in  England  so  good  on  the  whole,  if  we  regard  the  whole 
number  of  those  to  whom  it  is  due,  as  that  given  in  Ger- 
many or  France,  nor  is  it  given  in  schools  of  so  good  a 
standing.  Of  course,  what  good  instruction  there  is,  and 
what  schools  of  good  standing  there  are  to  get  it  in,  fall 
chiefly  to  the  lot  of  the  upper  class.  It  is  on  the  middle 
class  that  the  injury,  such  as  it  is,  of  getting  inferior  in- 
struction, and  of  getting  it  in  schools  of  inferior  standing, 
mainly  comes.  This  injury,  as  it  strikes  one  after  seeing 
attentively  the  schools  of  the  Continent,  has  two  aspects. 
It  has  a  social  aspect,  and  it  has  an  intellectual  aspect. 

The  social  injury  is  this.  On  the  Continent  the  upper 
and  middle  class  are  brought  up  on  one  and  the  same 
plane.     In  England  the  middle  class,  as  a  rule,  is  brought 


126  Politics  and  Society. 

up  on  the  second  plane.  One  hears  many  discussions  as 
to  the  Hmits  between  the  middle  and  the  upper  class  in 
England.  From  a  social  and  educational  point  of  view 
these  limits  are  perfectly  clear.  Ten  or  a  dozen  famous 
schools,  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  the  church  or  the  bar,  the 
army  or  navy,  and  those  posts  in  the  public  service  sup- 
posed to  be  posts  for  gentlemen, — these  are  the  lines  of 
training,  all  or  any  of  which  give  a  cast  of  ideas,  a  stamp 
or  habit,  which  make  a  sort  of  association  of  all  those 
who  share  them  ;  and  this  association  is  the  upper  class. 
Excep:  by  one  of  these  modes  of  access,  an  Englishman 
does  not,  unless  by  some  special  play  of  aptitude  or  of 
circumstances,  become  a  vital  part  of  this  association,  for 
he  does  not  bring  with  him  the  cast  of  ideas  in  which  its 
bond  of  union  lies.  This  cast  of  ideas  is  naturally  in  the 
main  that  of  the  most  powerful  and  prominent  part  of 
the  association, — the  aristocracy.  The  professions  furnish 
the  more  numerous  but  the  less  prominent  part ;  in  no 
country,  accordingly,  do  the  professions  so  naturally  and 
generally  share-  the  cast  of  ideas  of  the  aristocracy  as  in 
England.  Judged  from  its  bad  side,  this  cast  of  ideas  is 
characterised  by  over-reverence  for  things  established,  by 
an  estrangement  from  the  powers  of  reason  and  science. 
Judged  from  its  good  side,  it  is  characterised  by  a  high 
spirit,  by  dignity,  by  a  just  sense  of  the  greatness  of  great 
affairs, — all  of  them  governing  qualities  ;  and  the  pro- 
fessions have  accordingly  long  recruited  the  governing 


Our  Middle-class  Education.  1 2  7 

force  of  the  aristocracy,  and  assisted  it  to  rule.  But 
they  are  separate,  to  a  degree  unknown  on  the  Continent, 
from  the  coiiimercial  and  industrial  classes  with  which  in 
social  standing  they  are  naturally  on  a  level.  So  we  have 
amongst  us  the  spectacle  of  a  middle  class  cut  in  two  in 
a  way  unexampled  anywhere  else  ;  of  a  professional  class 
brought  up  on  the  first  plane,  with  fine  and  governing 
qualities,  but  disinclined  to  rely  on  reason  and  science  ; 
while  that  immense  business  class,  which  is  becoming  so 
important  a  power  in  all  countries,  on  which  the  future 
so  much  depends,  and  which  in  the  great  public  schools 
of  other  countries  fills  so  large  a  place,  is  in  England 
brought  up  on  the  second  plane,  cut  off  from  the  aristo- 
cracy and  the  professions,  and  without  governing  quali- 
ties. 

If  only,  in  compensation,  it  had  science,  systematic 
knowledge,  reason  !  But  here  comes  in  the  intellectual 
mischief  of  the  bad  condition  of  the  mass  of  our  second- 
ary schools.  In  England  the  business  class  is  not  only 
inferior  to  the  professions  and  aristocracy  in  the  social 
stamp  of  its  places  of  training  ;  it  is  actually  inferior  to 
them,  maimed  and  incomplete  as  their  development  of 
reason  is,  in  its  development  of  reason.  Short  as  the  off- 
spring of  our  public  schools  and  universities  come  of  the 
idea  of  science  and  systematic  knowledge,  the  offspring 
of  our  middle-class  academies  probably  come,  if  that  be 
possible,  even  shorter.     What  these  academies  fail  to  give 


12  8  Politics  and  Society. 

in  social  and  governing  qualities,  they  do  not  make  up 
for  in  intellectual  power.  Their  intellectual  result  is  as 
faulty  as  their  social  result. 

If  this  be  true,  then  that  our  middle  class  does  not 
yet  itself  see  the  defects  of  its  own  education,  is  not  con- 
scious of  the  injury  to  itself  from  them,  and  is  satisfied 
with  things  as  they  are,  is  no  reason  for  regarding  this 
state  of  things  without  disquietude. — Schools  and  Univer- 
sities on  the  Continent. 

PARIS  AND  LONDON. 

What  makes  me  look  at  France  and  the  French  with 
such  inexhaustible  curiosity  and  indulgence  is  this, — their 
faults  are  not  of  the  same  kind  as  ours,  so  we  are  not  likely 
to  catch  them  ;  their  merits  are  not  of  the  same  kind  as 
ours,  so  we  are  not  likely  to  become  idle  and  self-sufficient 
from  studying  them.  It  is  not  that  I  so  envy  my  Orleanist 
critic,  '  Horace,'  his  Paris  as  it  is  ; — I  no  longer  dance, 
nor  look  well  when  dressed  up  as  the  angel  Gabriel,  so 
what  should  I  now  do  in  Paris? — but  I  find  such  in- 
terest and  instruction  in  considering  a  city  so  near 
London,  and  yet  so  unlike  it  !  It  is  not  that  I  so  envy 
'  Horace  '  his  cafd-haunting,  dominoes-playing  bourgeois  ; 
but  when  I  go  through  Saint  Pancras,  I  like  to  compare 
our  vestry-haunting,  resolution-passing  bourgeois  with  the 
Frenchman,  and  to  say  to  myself :  '  This,  then,  is  what 
comes  of  not  frequenting  cafes  nor  playing  dominoes  ! 


Paris  and  London.  1 29 

My  countrymen  here  have  got  no  cafes,  and  have  never 
learnt  dominoes,  and  see  the  mischief  Satan  has  found 
for  their  idle  hands  to  do  ! '  Still,  I  do  not  wish  them  to 
be  the  cafe-haunting,  dominoes-playing  Frenchmen,  but 
rather  some  third  thing,  neither  the  Frenchmen  nor  their 
present  selves. — Friendship's  Garland. 

DEMANDS   ON  LIFE. 

If  we  consider  the  beauty  and  the  ever-advancing  perfec- 
tion of  Paris, — nay,  and  the  same  holds  good,  in  its  degree, 
of  all  the  other  great  French  cities  also, — if  we  consider 
the  theatre  there,  if  we  consider  the  pleasures,  recreations, 
even  the  eating  and  drinking,  if  we  consider  the  whole 
range  of  resources  for  instruction  and  for  delight  and  for 
the  ccmveniences  of  a  humane  life  generally,  and  if  we 
then  think  of  London,  and  Liverpool,  and  Glasgow,  and 
of  the  life  of  English  towns  generally,  we  shall  find  that 
the  advantage  of  France  arises  from  its  immense  middle 
class  making  the  same  sort  of  demands  upon  life  which 
only  a  comparatively  small  upper  class  makes  amongst 
ourselves. 

Delicate  and  gifted  single  natures  are  sown  in  all 
countries.  The  French  aristocracy  will  not  bear  a 
moment's  comparison  for  splendour  and  importance  with 
ours,  neither  have  the  French  our  exceptional  class, 
registered  by  Mr.  Charles  Sumner,  of  gentlemen.  But 
these  are,  after  all,   only  two  relatively  small  divisions 

K 


1 30  Politics  and  Society. 

broken  off  from  the  top  of  that  whole  great  class  which 
does  not  live  by  the  labour  of  its  hands.  These  small 
divisions  make  upon  life  the  demands  of  humane  and 
civilised  men.  But  they  are  too  small  and  too  weak  to 
create  a  civilisation,  to  make  a  Paris.  The  great  bulk  of 
the  class  from  which  they  are  broken  off  makes,  as  is  well 
known,  no  such  demands  upon  life.  London,  Liverpool, 
and  Glasgow,  with  their  kind  of  building,  physiognomy 
and  effects,  with  their  theatres,  pleasures,  recreations,  and 
resources  in  general  of  delight  and  convenience  for  a 
humane  life,  are  the  result.  But  in  France  the  whole 
middle  class  makes,  I  say,  upon  life  the  demands  of  civi- 
lised men,  and  this  immense  demand  creates  the  civilisa- 
tion we  see.  And  the  joy  of  this  civilisation  creates  the 
passionate  delight  and  pride  in  France  which  we  find  in 
Frenchmen.  Life  is  so  good  and  agreeable  a  thing  there, 
and  for  so  many, — Mixed  JEssays. 

FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 

That  a  whole  nation  should  have  been  penetrated  with 
an  enthusiasm  for  pure  reason,  and  with  an  ardent  zeal 
for  making  its  prescriptions  triumph,  is  a  very  remarkable 
thing,  when  we  consider  how  little  of  mind,  or  of  anything 
so  worthy  and  quickening  as  mind,  comes  into  the  motives 
which  alone,  in  general,  impel  great  masses  of  men.  In 
spite  of  the  extravagant  direction  given  to  this  enthu- 
siasm, in  spite  of  the  crimes  and  follies  in  which  it  lost 


French  Revolution.  131 

itself,  the  French  Revolution  derives  from  the  force, 
truth,  and  universality  of  the  ideas  which  it  took  for  its 
law,  and  from  the  passion  with  which  it  could  inspire  a 
multitude  for  these  ideas,  a  unique  and  still  living  power ; 
it  is, — it  will  probably  long  remain, — the  greatest,  the  most 
animating  event  in  history.  And,  as  no  sincere  passion 
for  the  things  of  the  mind,  even  though  it  turn  out  in 
many  respects  an  unfortunate  passion,  is  ever  quite 
thrown  away  and  quite  barren  of  good,  France  has  reaped 
from  hers  one  fruit, — the  natural  and  legitimate  fruit, 
though  not  precisely  the  grand  fruit  she  expected  :  she  is 
the  country  in  Europe  where  the  people  is  most  alive. — 
Essays  in  Criticis77i. 

ENGLAND  AND    THE   CELTS. 

There  is  nothing  like  love  and  admiration  for  bringing 
people  to  a  likeness  with  what  they  love  and  admire  \ 
but  the  Englishman  seems  never  to  dream  of  employing 
these  influences  upon  a  race  he  wants  to  fuse  with  him- 
self He  employs  simply  material  interests  for  his  work 
of  fusion  ;  and,  beyond  these,  nothing  except  scorn  and 
rebuke.  Accordingly  there  is  no  vital  union  between 
him  and  the  races  he  has  annexed  ;  and  while  France 
can  truly  boast  of  her  'magnificent  unity,'  a  unity  of 
spirit  no  less  than  of  name  between  all  the  people  who 
compose  her,  in  our  country  the  Englishman  proper  is 
in  union  of  spirit  with  no  one  except  other  Englishmen 

K  2 


132  Politics  aitd  Society. 


proper  like  himself.  His  Welsh  and  Irish  fellow-citizens 
are  hardly  more  amalgamated  with  him  now  than  they 
were  when  Wales  and  Ireland  were  first  conquered,  and 
the  true  unity  of  even  these  small  islands  has  yet  to  be 
achieved.  When  my  lucubrations  on  the  Celtic  genius 
and  literature  first  appeared  in  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine,' 
they  brought  me,  as  was  natural,  many  communications 
from  Welshmen  and  Irishmen  having  an  interest  in  the 
subject ;  and  one  could  not  but  be  painfully  struck,  in 
reading  these  communications,  to  see  how  profound  a 
feeling  of  aversion  and  severance  from  the  English  they 
in  general  manifested.  Who  can  be  surprised  at  it,  when 
he  observes  the  strain  of  the  '  Times  '  in  commentinc  on 
a  Welsh  Eisteddfod,  and  remembers  that  this  is  the 
characteristic  strain  of  the  Englishman  in  commenting  on 
whatsoever  is  not  himself?  And  then,  with  our  bound- 
less faith  in  machinery,  we  English  expect  the  Welshman 
as  a  matter  of  course  to  grow  attached  to  us,  because  we 
invite  him  to  do  business  with  us,  and  let  him  hold  any 
number  of  public  meetings  and  publish  all  the  newspapers 
he  likes  !  When  shall  we  learn,  that  what  attaches 
people  to  us  is  the  spirit  we  are  of,  and  not  the  machinery 
we  employ  ? — Study  of  Celtic  Literature. 

ENGLAND  AND  IRELAND. 

Our  nation  is  not  deficient  in  self-esteem,  and  certainly 
there  is  much  in  our  achievements  and  prospects  to  give 


England  and  Ireland.  1 3  3 


o 


us  satisfaction.  But  even  to  -the  most  self-satisfied 
Englishman,  Ireland  must  be  an  occasion,  one  would 
think,  from  time  to  time  of  mortifying  thoughts.  We  may 
be  conscious  of  nothing  but  the  best  intentions  towards 
Ireland,  the  justest  dealings  with  her.  But  how  little  she 
seems  to  appreciate  them  !.  We  may  talk,  with  the  '  Daily 
Telegraph,'  of  our  'great  and  genial  policy  of  conciliation ' 
towards  Ireland  ;  we  may  say,  with  Mr.  Lowe,  that  by 
their  Irish  policy  in  1868  the  Liberal  Ministry,  of  whom 
he  was  one,  '  resolved  to  knit  the  hearts  of  the  empire 
into  one  harmonious  concord,  and  knitted  they  were 
accordingly.'  Only,  unfortunately,  the  Irish  themselves 
do  not  see  the  matter  as  we  do.  All  that  by  our  genial 
policy  we  seem  to  have  succeeded  in  inspiring  in  the 
Irish  themselves  is  an  aversion  to  us  so  violent,  that  for 
England  to  incline  one  way  is  a  sufificient  reason  to  make 
Ireland  incline  another  ;  and  the  obstruction  offered  by 
the  Irish  members  in  Parliament  is  really  an  expression, 
above  all,  of  this  uncontrollable  antipathy.  Nothing  is 
more  honourable  to  French  civilisation  than  its  success 
in  attaching  strongly  to  France, — France  Catholic  and 
Celtic, — the  German  and  Protestant  Alsace.  What  a 
contrast  to  the  humiliating  failure  of  British  civilisation 
to  attach  to  Germanic  and  Protestant  Great  Britain  the 
Celtic  and  Catholic  Ireland  ! 

For  my  part,  I  have  never  affected  to  be  either  sur- 
prised or  indignant  at  the  antipathy  of  the  Irish  to  us. 


134  Politics  and  Society. 

What  they  have  had  to  suffer  from  us  in  past  times,  all 
the  world  knows.  And  now,  when  we  profess  to  practise 
'  a  great  and  genial  policy  of  conciliation '  towards  them, 
they  are  really  governed  by  us  in  deference  to  the  opinion 
and  sentiment  of  the  British  middle  class,  and  of  the 
strongest  part  of  this  class,  the  Puritan  community.  I 
have  pointed  out  this  before,  but  in  a  book  about  schools, 
and  which  only  those  who  are  concerned  with  schools 
are  likely  to  have  read.  Let  me  be  suffered,  therefore, 
to  repeat  it  here.  The  opinion  and  sentiment  of  our 
middle  class  controls  the  policy  of  our  statesmen  towards 
Ireland.  That  policy  does  not  represent  the  real  mind  of 
our  leading  statesmen,  but  the  mind  of  the  British  middle 
class  controlling  the  action  of  statesmen.  The  ability  of 
our  popular  journalists  and  successful  statesmen  goes  to 
putting  the  best  colour  they  can  upon  the  action  so  con- 
trolled. But  a  disinterested  observer  will  see  an  action 
so  controlled  to  be  what  it  is,  and  will  call  it  what  it  is. 
Now  the  great  failure  of  our  actual  national  life  is  the 
imperfect  civilisation  of  our  middle  class.  The  great 
need  of  our  time  is  the  transformation  of  the  British 
Puritan.  Our  Puritan  middle  class  presents  a  defective 
tyfie  of  religion,  a  narrow  range  of  intellect  and  knowledge, 
a  stunted  sense  of  beauty,  a  low  standard  of  manners. 
And  yet  it  is  in  deference  to  the  opinion  and  sentiment 
of  such  a  class  that  we  shape  our  policy  towards  Ireland. 
And  we  wonder  at  Ireland's  antipathy  to  us  !     Nay,  we 


England  and  Ireland. 


expect  Ireland  to  lend  herself  to  the  make-believe  of  our 
own  journalists  and  statesmen,  and  to  call  our  policy 
'  genial '  ! — Mixed  Essays. 

MIDDLE    CLASS  FOREIGN  POLICY. 

The  foreigners  are  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  real  authors 
of  the  policy  of  modern  England.  They  know  that 
ours  is  no  longer  a  policy  of  Pitts  and  aristocracies, 
disposing  of  every  movement  of  the  hoodwinked  nation 
to  whom  they  dictate  it  ;  they  know  that  our  policy  is 
now  dictated  by  the  strong  middle  part  of  England, — 
England  happy,  as  Mr.  Lowe,  quoting  Aristotle,  says,  in 
having  her  middle  part  strong  and  her  extremes  weak; 
and  that,  though  we  are  administered  by  one  of  our  weak 
extremes,  the  aristocracy,  these  managers  administer  us, 
as  a  weak  extreme  naturally  must,  with  a  nervous  atten- 
tion to  the  wishes  of  the  strong  middle  part,  whose  agents 
they  are.  It  was  not  the  aristocracy  which  made  the 
Crimean  war  ;  it  was  the  strong  middle  part — the  consti- 
tuencies. It  was  the  strong  middle  part  which  showered 
abuse  and  threats  on  Germany  for  mishandling  Denmark ; 
and  when  Germany  gruffly  answered,  Cotne  and  stop  us, 
slapped  its  pockets,  and  vowed  that  it  had  never  had  the 
slightest  notion  of  pushing  matters  so  far  as  this.  It  was 
the  strong  middle  part  which,  by  the  voice  of  its  favourite 
newspapers,  kept  threatening  Germany,  after  she  had 
snapped  her   fingers  at  us,  with  a  future  chastisement 


136  Politics  and  Society. 

from  France,  just  as  a  smarting  school-boy  threatens  his 
bully  with  a  drubbing  to  come  from  some  big  boy  in  the 
background.  It  was  the  strong  middle  part,  speaking 
through  the  same  newspapers,  which  was  full  of  coldness, 
slights,  and  sermons  for  the  American  Federals  during 
their  late  struggle ;  and  as  soon  as  they  had  succeeded, 
discovered  that  it  had  always  wished  them  well,  and  that 
nothing  was  so  much  to  be  desired  as  that  the  United 
States  and  we  should  be  the  fastest  friends  possible. 
Some  people  will  say  that  the  aristocracy  was  an  equal 
offender  in  this  respect.  Very  likely  ;  but  the  behaviour 
of  the  strong  middle  part  makes  more  impression  than 
the  behaviour  of  a  weak  extreme  ;  and  the  more  so, 
because  from  the  middle  class,  their  fellows  in  number- 
less ways,  the  Americans  expected  sympathy,  while  from 
the  aristocracy  they  expected  none.  And,  in  general,  the 
faults  with  which  foreigners  reproach  us  in  the  matters 
named, — rash  engagement,  intemperate  threatening,  un- 
dignified retreat,  ill-timed  cordiality, — are  not  the  faults 
of  an  aristocracy,  by  nature  in  such  concerns  prudent, 
reticent,  dignified,  sensitive  on  the  point  of  honour;  they 
are  rather  the  faults  of  a  rich  middle  class, — testy,  abso- 
lute, ill-acquainted  with  foreign  matters,  a  little  ignoble, 
very  dull  to  perceive  when  it  is  making  itself  ridiculous. 
— Friendship's  Garland. 


TJie  Young  Man  from  the  Country.    137 


THE    YOUNG  MAN  FROM  THE   COUNTRY. 

Englishmen  are  often  heard  complaining  of  the  little 
gratitude  foreign  nations  show  them  for  their  sympathy, 
their  good-will.  The  reason  is,  that  the  foreigners  think 
that  an  Englishman's  good-will  to  a  foreign  cause,  or  dis- 
like to  it,  is  never  grounded  in  a  perception  of  its  real 
merits  and  bearings,  but  in  some  chance  circumstance. 
They  say  that  the  Englishman  never,  in  these  cases,  really 
comprehends  the  situation,  and  so  they  can  never  feel 
him  to  be  in  living  sympathy  with  them.  I  have  got  into 
much  trouble  for  calling  my  countrymen  Philistines,  and 
all  through  these  remarks  I  am  determined  never  to  use 
that  word  ;  but  I  wonder  if  there  can  be  anything 
offensive  in  calling  one's  countryman  a  young  man  from 
the  country.  I  hope  not ;  and  if  not,  I  should  say,  for 
the  benefit  of  those  who  have  seen  Mr.  John  Parry's 
amusing  entertainment,  that  England  and  Englishmen, 
holding  forth  on  some  great  crisis  in  a  foreign  country, — • 
Poland,  say,  or  Italy, — are  apt  to  have  on  foreigners  very 
much  the  effect  of  the  young  man  from  the  country,  who 
talks  to  the  nursemaid  after  she  has  upset  the  perambu- 
lator. There  is  a  terrible  crisis,  and  the  discourse  of 
the  young  man  from  the  country,  excellent  in  itself,  is 
felt  not  to  touch  the  crisis  vitally.  Nevertheless,  on  he 
goes  ;  the  perambulator  lies  a  wreck,  the  child  screams, 
the   nursemaid   wrings   her   hands,   the   old   gentleman 


1 3  8  Politics  and  Society. 

storms,  the  policeman  gesticulates,  the  crowd  thickens  ; 
still,  that  astonishing  young  man  talks  on,  serenely  un- 
conscious that  he  is  not  at  the  centre  of  the  situation. — 
FriendsJiip' s  Garland. 

THE   GREAT    WAR    WITH  FRANCE. 

'Your  "Times"  was  telling  you  the  other  day,'  said 
Arminius  to  me,  'that  instead  of  being  proud  of 
Waterloo  and  the  great  war  which  was  closed  by  it,  it 
really  seemed  as  if  you  ought  rather  to  feel  embar- 
rassed at  the  recollection  of  them,  since  the  policy  for 
which  they  were  fought  is  grown  obsolete  ;  the  world 
has  taken  a  turn  which  was  not  Lord  Castlereagh's, 
and  to  look  back  on  the  great  Tory  war  is  to  look 
back  upon  an  endless  account  of  blood  and  treasure 
wasted.  Now,  that  is  not  so  at  all.  What  France  had 
in  her  head,  from  the  Convention,  "faithful  to  the 
principles  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  which  will 
not  permit  them  to  acknowledge  anywhere  the  in- 
stitutions militating  against  it,"  to  Napoleon,  with  his 
"  immense  projects  for  assuring  to  France  the  empire  of 
the  world," — what  she  had  in  her  head,  along  with  many 
better  and  sounder  notions  destined  to  happier  fortune, 
was  suprejnacy.  She  had  always  a  vision  of  a  sort  of 
federation  of  the  States  of  Europe  under  the  primacy  of 
France.  Now  to  this  the  world,  whose  progress  no 
doubt  lies  in  the  direction  of  more  concert  and  common 


The  Great  War  with  Finance.         139 

purpose  among  nations,  but  these  nations  free,  self- 
impelled,  and  living  each  its  own  life,  was  not  moving. 
Whoever  knocks  to  pieces  a  scheme  of  this  sort  does 
the  world  a  service.  In  antiquity,  Roman  empire  had  a 
scheme  of  this  sort,  and  much  more.  The  barbarians 
knocked  it  to  pieces  ; — honour  to  the  barbarians.  In  the 
Middle  Ages  Frederick  the  Second  had  a  scheme  of  this 
sort.  The  Papacy  knocked  it  to  pieces  ; — honour  to  the 
Papacy.  In  our  own  century,  France  had  a  scheme  of 
this  sort.  Your  fathers  knocked  it  to  pieces  ; — honour  to 
your  fathers.  They  were  just  the  people  to  do  it.  They 
had  a  vigorous  lower  class,  a  vigorous  middle  class,  and 
a  vigorous  aristocracy.  The  lower  class  worked  and 
fought,  the  middle  class  found  the  money,  and  the  aris- 
tocracy wielded  the  whole.  This  aristocracy  was  high- 
spirited,  reticent,  firm,  despising  frothy  declamation.  It 
had  all  the  qualities  useful  for  its  task  and  time  ;  Lord 
Grenville's words,  as  early  as  1793  :  "England  will  never 
consent  that  France  shall  arrogate  the  power  of  annulling 
at  her  pleasure,  and  under  the  pretence  of  a  pretended 
natural  right,  the  political  system  of  Europe," — these  few 
words,  with  their  lofty  strength,  contain,  as  one  may  say, 
the  prophecy  of  future  success  \  you  hear  the  very  voice 
of  an  aristocracy  standing  on  sure  ground,  and  with  the 
stars  in  its  favour.  Well,  you  succeeded,  and  in  18 15, 
after  Waterloo,  you  were  the  first  power  in  Europe.' 
■ — Friendship's  Garland. 


1 40  Politics  and  Society. 

LORDS   GRENVILLE  AND    GRANVILLl 

'Your  great  organ,  the  "Times,"'  said  Arminius  another 
day,  '  not  satisfied  with  itself  conveying  to  other  Powers 
in  the  most  magnificent  manner  (a  duty,  to  say  the  truth, 
it  always  fulfils)  "  what  England  believes  to  be  due  from 
and  to  her,"  keeps  exhorting  your  Government  to  do 
the  same,  to  speak  some  brave  words,  and  to  speak 
them  "  with  promptitude  and  energy." 

'  I  suppose  your  Government  will  do  so.  But  forgive 
me  if  I  tell  you  that  to  us  disrespectful  foreigners  it 
makes  very  little  difference  in  our  estimate  of  you  and 
of  the  future  whether  your  Government  does  so  or  not. 
What  gives  the  sense  and  significance  to  a  Government's 
declarations  is  the  power  which  is  behind  the  Govern- 
ment. And  what  is  the  power  which  is  behind  the 
Government  of  England  at  the  present  epoch?  The 
Philistines. 

'  Simply  and  solely  the  Philistines,  my  dear  friend, 
take  my  word  for  it  !  No,  you  will  say,  it  is  the  nation. 
Pardon  me,  you  have  no  nation.  France  is  fused  into 
one  nation  by  the  military  spirit,  and  by  her  democracy, 
the  great  legacy  of  1789,  and  subsisting  even  amidst  her 
present  corruption.  Germany  is  fused  into  one  nation 
by  her  idea  of  union  and  of  the  elevation  of  her  whole 
people  through  culture.  You  are  made  up,  as  I  have 
often  told  you  through  my  poor  disciple  whom  you  so 


Lc7^ds  Grenville  and  Granville.       141 

well  know,  of  three  distinct  and  unfused  bodies, — Barba- 
rians, Philistines,  Populace.  You  call  them  aristocracy, 
middle,  and  lower  class.  One  of  these  three  must  be 
predominant  and  lead.  Your  lower  class  counts  as  yet 
for  little  or  nothing.  There  is  among  them  a  small  body 
of  workmen  with  modern  ideas,  ideas  of  organisation, 
who  may  be  a  nucleus  for  the  future  ;  there  are  more  of 
them  Philistines  in  a  small  way,  Philistines  in  embryo; 
but  most  of  them  are  mere  populace,  or,  to  use  your  own 
kindly  term,  residuum.  Such  a  class  does  not  lead. 
Formerly  your  aristocracy  led ;  it  commanded  the 
politics  of  the  country  ;  it  had  an  aristocracy's  ideas, — 
limited  enough,  but  the  idea  of  the  country's  grandeur 
and  dignity  was  among  them  ;— it  took  your  middle  and 
lower  class  along  with  it,  and  used  them  in  its  own  way, 
and  it  made  the  great  war  which  the  battle  of  Waterloo 
crowned.  But  countries  must  outgrow  a  feudal  organi- 
sation, and  the  political  command  of  an  aristocracy  ; 
your  country  has  outgrown  it.  You  aristocracy  tells 
upon  England  socially  ;  by  all  the  power  of  example  of 
a  class  high-placed,  rich,  idle,  self-indulgent,  without 
mental  life,  it  teaches  your  Philistines  how  to  live  fast. 
But  it  no  longer  rules  ;  at  most  it  but  administers  ;  the 
Philistines  rule.  That  makes  the  difference  between 
Lord  Grenville  and  Lord  Granville.  When  Lord  Gren- 
ville had  to  speak  to  Europe  in  1793,  he  had  behind 
him  your  aristocracy,  not  indeed  fused  with  your  middle 


142  Politics  and  Society. 

and  lower  class,  but  wielding  them  and  using  their  force; 
and  all  the  world  knew  what  your  aristocracy  meant, 
for  they  knew  it  themselves.  But  Lord  Granville  has 
behind  him,  when  he  speaks  to  Europe  in  1870,  your 
Philistines  or  middle  class  ;  and  how  should  the  world 
know,  or  much  care,  what  your  middle  class  mean  ?  for 
they  do  not  know  it  themselves. 

'You  may  be  mortified,  but  such  is  the  truth.  To 
be  consequent  and  powerful,  men  must  be  bottomed  on 
some  vital  idea  or  sentiment,  which  lends  strength  and 
certainty  to  their  action.  Your  aristocracy  of  seventy 
years  ago  had  the  sentiment  of  the  greatness  of  the  old 
aristocratical  England,  and  that  sentiment  gave  them 
force  to  endure  labours,  anxiety,  danger,  disappointment, 
loss,  restrictions  of  liberty.  Your  ruling  middle  class 
has  no  such  foundation  ;  hence  its  imbecility.  It  would 
tell  you  it  believes  in  industrial  development  and  liberty. 
Examine  what  it  means  by  these,  and  you  find  it  means 
getting  rich  and  not  being  meddled  with.  And  these  it 
imagines  to  be  self-acting  powers  for  good,  and  agents  of 
greatness  ;  so  that  if  more  trade  is  done  in  England  than 
anpvhere  else,  if  your  personal  independence  is  without 
a  check,  and  your  newspaper  publicity  unbounded,  your 
Philistines  think  they  are  by  the  nature  of  things  great, 
powerful,  and  admirable,  and  that  their  England  has  only 
to  speak  "  with  promptitude  and  energy  "  in  order  to 
prevail. 


Loi^ds  Grenville  and  Granville.       143 

'And   this  is   the  power  which  Lord  Granville  has 
behind  him,  and  which  is  to  give  the  force  and  meaning 
to  his  words.     Poor  Lord  Granville  !     I  imagine  he  is 
under  no  illusions.     He  knows  the  British  Philistine,  with 
his  likes  and  dislikes,  his  effusion  and  confusion,  his  hot 
and  cold  fits,  his  want  of  dignity  and  of  the  stedfastness 
which  comes  from  dignity,  his  want  of  ideas  and  of  the 
stedfastness  which  comes  from  ideas  ; — he  has  seen  him 
at  work  already.     He  has  seen  the  Russian  war  and  the 
Russian  peace  ;  a  war  and  peace  your  aristocracy  did  not 
make  and  never  would  have  made, — the  British  Philistine 
and  his  newspapers  have  the  whole  merit  of  it.     In  your 
social  gatherings  I  know  you  have  the  habit  of  assuring 
one   another  that  in  some  mysterious  way  the  Russian 
war  did  you  good  in  the  eyes  of  Europe.     Undeceive 
yourselves  ;  it   did   you   nothing   but   harm,  and   Lord 
Granville  is  far  too  clever  a  man  not  to  know  it.     Then, 
in  the  Denmark  quarrel,  your  Philistines  did  not  make 
war,    indeed,    but   they   threatened  it.      Surely   in   the 
Denmark  case  there  was  no  want  of  brave  words  ;  no 
failure   to  speak  out    "  with   promptitude   and  energy," 
And   we  all   know   what   came   of  it.     Unique   British 
Philistine  !     Is  he  most  to  be  revered  when  he  makes 
his   wars   or  when   he   threatens   them  ?      And   at  the 
prompting  of  this  great  backer  Lord  Granville  is  now 
to  speak  !     Probably  he  will  have,  as  the  French  say,  to 
execute  himself ;  only  do  not  suppose  that  we  are  under 


]  44  Politics  and  Society. 

any  delusion  as  to  the  sort  of  force  he  has  behind  him.' 
— Frietidshif  s  Garland. 

THE  BRITISH  PHILISTINE  AND    CONTINENTAL 
GOVERNMENTS. 

'You  are  a  self-governing  people,'  Arminius  went  on, 
'you  are  represented  by  your  "strong  middle  part,"'  youi 
Philistine :  and  this  is  what  your  Government  must 
watch  ;  this  is  what  it  must  take  its  cue  from. 

'  Here,  then,  is  your  situation,  that  your  Government 
does  not  and  cannot  really  govern,  but  at  present  is  and 
must  be  the  mouthpiece  of  your  Philistines  ;  and  that 
foreign  Governments  know  this  very  well,  know  it  to 
their  cost.  Nothing  the  best  of  them  would  like  better 
than  to  deal  with  England  seriously  and  respectfully, — 
the  England  of  their  traditions,  the  England  of  history  ; 
nothing,  even,  they  would  like  better  than  to  deal  with 
the  English  Government, — as  at  any  time  it  may  happen 
to  stand,  composed  of  a  dozen  men  more  or  less  eminent, 
— seriously  and  respectfully.  But,  good  God  !  it  is  not 
with  these  dozen  men  in  their  natural  state  that  a  foreign 
Government  finds  it  has  to  deal  ;  it  is  with  these  dozen 
men  sitting  in  devout  expectation  to  see  how  the  cat  will 
jump, — and  that  cat  the  British  Philistine  !  , 

'  What  statesman  can  deal  seriously  and  respectfully 
with  you,  when  he  finds  that  he  is  not  dealing  mind  to 
mind  with  an  intelligent  equal,  but  that  he  is  dealing  with 


The  British  Philistine,  etc.  145 

a  tumult  of  likes  and  dislikes,  hopes,  panics,  intrigues, 
stock-jobbing,  quidnuncs,  newspapers, — dealing  with  ignor- 
ance, in  short,  for  that  one  word  contains  it  all, — behind  his 
intelligent  equal  ?  Whatever  he  says  to  a  British  Minister, 
however  convincing  he  may  be,  a  foreign  statesman 
knows  that  he  has  only  half  his  hearer's  attention,  that 
only  one  of  the  British  Minister's  eyes  is  turned  his  way  ; 
the  other  eye  is  turned  anxiously  back  on  the  home 
Philistines  and  the  home  press,  and  according  as  these 
finally  go  the  British  Minister  must  go  too.  This  sort  of 
thing  demoralises  your  Ministers  themselves  in  the  end, 
ever  your  able  and  honest  ones,  and  makes  them  impos- 
sible to  deal  with.  God  forgive  me  if  I  do  him  wrong  ! 
— but  I  always  suspect  that  your  sly  old  Sir  Hamilton 
Seymour,  in  his  conversations  with  the  Emperor  Nicholas 
before  the  Crimean  war,  had  at  last  your  Philistines  and 
your  press,  and  their  unmistakable  bent,  in  his  eye,  and 
did  not  lead  the  poor  Czar  quite  straight.  If  ever  there 
was  a  man  who  respected  England,  and  would  have  gone 
cordially  and  easily  with  a  capable  British  minister,  that 
man  was  Nicholas.  England,  Russia,  and  Austria  are 
the  Powers  with  a  real  interest  in  the  Eastern  question, 
and  it  ought  to  be  settled  fairly  between  them.  Nicholas 
wished  nothing  better.  Even  if  you  would  not  thus 
settle  the  question,  he  would  have  forborne  to  any  extent 
sooner  than  go  to  war  with  you,  if  he  could  only  have 
known  what  you  were  really  at.     To  be  sure,  as  you  did 

L 


1 46  Politics  and  Society. 

not  know  this  yourselves,  you  could  not  possibly  tell 
him,  poor  man  !  Louis  Napoleon,  meanwhile,  had  his 
prestige  to  make.  France  pulled  the  wires  right  and  left ; 
your  Philistines  had  a  passion  for  that  old  acrobat  Lord 
Palmerston,  who,  clever  as  he  was,  had  an  aristocrat's 
inaptitude  for  ideas,  and  believed  in  upholding  and  reno- 
vating the  Grand  Turk  ;  Lord  Aberdeen  knew  better,  but 
his  eye  was  nervously  fixed  on  tlie  British  Philistine  and 
the  British  press.  The  British  Philistine  learnt  that  he 
was  being  treated  with  rudeness  and  must  make  his 
voice  heard  'with  promptitude  and  energy.'  There  was 
the  usual  explosion  of  passions,  prejudices,  stock-jobbing, 
newspaper-articles,  chatter,  and  general  ignorance,  and 
the  Czar  found  he  must  either  submit  to  have  capital 
made  out  of  him  by  French  vanity  and  Bonapartist 
necessities,  or  enter  into  the  Crimean  war.  He  entered 
into  the  Crimean  war,  and  it  broke  his  heart.  France 
came  out  of  the  Crimean  war  the  first  Power  in  Europe, 
with  French  vanity  and  Bonapartist  necessities  fully 
served.  You  came  out  of  it  with  the  British  Philistine's 
role  in  European  affairs  for  the  first  time  thoroughly 
recognised  and  appreciated.' — Frietidship's  Garland. 

THE  BLACK  SEA    QUESTION  ILLUSTRATED. 

In  my  immediate  neighbourhood  here  in  Cripplegate  we 
have  lately  had  a  case  which  exactly  illustrates  the 
present   difficulty  with   Russia   as   to   her    use   of   the 


The  Black  Sea  Question  Illustrated.    147 

Black  Sea.  We  all  do  our  marketing  in  Whitecross 
Street ;  and  in  Whitecross  Street  is  a  famous  tripe-shop 
which  I  always  visit  before  entertaining  Arminius,  who, 
like  all  North  Germans,  and  like  our  own  celebrated 
Dr.  Johnson,  is  a  very  gross  feeder.  Two  powerful 
labourers,  who  lodge  like  Arminius  in  Chequer  Alley, 
and  who  never  could  abide  one  another,  used  to  meet 
at  this  tripe-shop  and  quarrel  till  it  became  manifest 
that  the  shop  could  not  stand  two  such  customers 
together,  and  that  one  of  the  couple  must  give  up 
going  there.  The  fellows'  names  were  Mike  and  Dennis. 
It  was  generally  thought  the  chief  blame  in  the  quarrel 
lay  with  Mike,  who  was  at  any  rate  much  the  less 
plausible  man  of  the  two,  besides  being  greatly  the 
bigger.  However  that  may  be,  the  excellent  City  Mis- 
sionary in  this  quarter,  the  Rev.  J-hn  B-U  (I  forbear 
to  write  his  name  at  length  for-  fear  of  bringing  a  blush 
to  his  worthy  cheek),  took  Dennis's  part  in  the  matter. 
He  and  Dennis  set  both  together  upon  Mike,  and  got 
the  best  of  him.  It  was  Dennis  who  appeared  to  do  the 
most  in  the  set-to  ;  at  all  events,  he  got  the  whole  credit, 
although  I  have  heard  the  Rev.  J-hn  B-ll  (who  was 
undoubtedly  a  formidable  fellow  in  his  old  unregenerate 
days)  describe  at  tea  in  the  Mission  Room  how  he  got 
his  stick  between  Mike's  legs  at  all  the  critical  moments ; 
how  he  felt  fresher  and  stronger  when  the  fight  ended 
than  when  it  began  ;  and  how  his  behaviour  had  some- 

L   2 


148  Politics  mid  Society. 

how  the  effect  of  leaving  on  the  bystanders'  minds  an 
impression  immensely  to  his  advantage.  What  is  quite 
certain  is,  that  not  only  did  our  reverend  friend  take  part 
in  the  engagement,  but  that  also,  before,  during,  and  after 
the  struggle,  his  exhortations  and  admonitions  to  Mike, 
Dennis,  the  bystanders,  and  himself,  never  ceased,  and 
were  most  edifying.  Mike  finally,  as  I  said,  had  to  give 
in,  and  he  was  obliged  to  make  a  solemn  promise  to 
Dennis  and  the  City  Missionary  that  he  would  use  the 
tripe-shop  no  more.  On  this  condition  a  treaty  was 
patched  up,  and  peace  reigned  in  Cripplegate. 

And  now  comes  the  startling  point  of  resemblance 
to  the   present  Russian  difficulty.     A   great   big  hulk- 
ing   German,    called    Fritz,    has   been    for    some    time 
taking  a   lead  in  our   neighbourhood,  and  carrying  his 
head   a  great  deal  higher  in  Whitecross  Street  Market 
than  Dennis  liked.     At   last  Dennis  could  stand  it  no 
.  longer ;    he   picked   a    quarrel    with    Fritz,    and    they 
had  a  battle-royal  to  prove  which  was  master.     In  this 
encounter  our  City  Missionary  took  no  part,  though  he 
bestowed,    as   usual,    on   both    sides   good   advice   and 
beautiful  sentiments  in  abundance.     Dennis  had  no  luck 
this  time  ;  he  got  horribly  belaboured,  and  now  lies  con- 
fined to  his  bed  at  his  lodgings,  almost  past  praying  for. 
But  what  do  you  think  has  been  Mike's  conduct  at  this 
juncture  ?    Seeing  Dennis  disabled,  he  addressed  to  the 
City  Missionary  an  indecent  scrawl,  couched  in  language 


The  Black  Sea  Question  Illustrated.   149 

with  which  I  will  not  sully  your  pages,  to  the  effect 
that  the  tripe-shop  lay  handy  to  his  door  (which  is 
true  enough) ;  and  that  use  it  he  needs  must,  and  use  it 
he  would,  in  spite  of  all  the  Rev.  J-hn  B-ll  might  say  or 
do  to  stop  him. 

The  feelings  of  the  worthy  Missionary  at  this  com- 
munication may  be  easier  imagined  than  described. 
He  launched  at  Mike  the  most  indignant  moral  re- 
buke ;  the  brute  put  his  thumb  to  his  nose.  To  get 
Mike  out  of  the  tripe-shop  there  is  nothing  left  but 
physical  force.  Yet  how  is  our  estimable  friend  to 
proceed  ?  Years  of  outpouring,  since  he  has  been 
engaged  in  mission-work,  have  somewhat  damaged  his 
wind ;  the  hospitalities  of  the  more  serious-minded 
citizens  of  Cripplegate  to  a  man  in  his  position  have 
been,  I  hope,  what  they  should  be  ;  there  are  apprehen- 
sions, if  violent  exercise  is  taken,  of  gout  in  the  stomach. 
Dennis  can  do  nothing  ;  what  is  worse,  Fritz  has  been 
seen  to  wink  his  eye  at  Mike  in  a  way  to  beget  grave 
suspicion  that  the  ruffians  have  a  secret  compact  to- 
gether. The  general  feeling  in  Cripplegate  is  that 
nothing  much  can  be  done,  and  that  Mike  must  be 
allowed  to  resort  again  to  the  tripe-shop. 

But  I  ask,  is  this  morally  defensible  ?  Is  it  right  ? 
Is  it  honest  ?  Has  not  Lord  Shaftesbury's  English  heart 
(if  it  is  not  presumptuous  in  me  to  speak  thus  of  a 
person  in  his  Lordship's  position)  guided  him  true  in  the 


1 50  Politics  and  Society. 

precisely  similar  case  of  Russia?  As  Lord  Shaftesbury 
says,  a  treaty  is  a  promise,  and  we  have  a  moral  right  to 
demand  that  promises  shall  be  kept.  If  Mike  wanted 
to  use  the  tripe-shop,  he  should  have  waited  till  Dennis 
was  about  again  and  could  talk  things  over  with  the 
City  Missionary,  and  then,  perhaps,  the  two  might  have 
been  found  willing  to  absolve  Mike  from  his  promise. 
His  present  conduct  is  inexcusable  ;  the  only  comfort  is 
that  the  Rev.  J-hn  B-ll  has  a  faith  fulpress  still  to  back 
him,  and  that  Mike  is  being  subjected  to  a  fearful  daily 
castigation  in  the  columns  of  the  '  Band  of  Hope  Re- 
view.'— Friendship's  Garland. 

A    GERMAN  LESSON. 

The  last  tirade  of  Arminius  to  me,  before  he  went  off 
to  the  wars,  was  this  : — '  Your  newspapers  are  every  day 
solemnly  saying  that  the  great  lesson  to  be  learned  from 
the  present  war  between  France  and  Germany  is  so  and 
so, — always  something  which  it  is  not.  There  are  many 
lessons  to  be  learned  from  the  present  war  ;  I  will  tell  you 
what  is  ioi  you  the  great  lesson  to  be  learned  from  it  : — 
obedience.  That,  instead  of  every  man  airing  his  self- 
consequence,  thinking  it  bliss  to  talk  at  random  about 
things,  and  to  put  his  finger  in  every  pie,  you  should 
seriously  understand  that  there  is  a  right  way  of  doing 
things,  and  that  the  bliss  is,  without  thinking  of  one's  self- 
consequence,  to  do  them  in  that  way,  or  to  forward  their 


A  German  Lesson.  151 

being  done, — this  is  the  great  lesson  your  British  public, 
as  you  call  it,  has  to  learn  and  may  learn,  in  some 
degree,  from  the  Germans  in  this  war !  Englishmen 
were  once  famous  for  the  power  of  holding  their 
tongues  and  doing  their  business,  and,  therefore,  I 
admire  your  nation.  The  business  now  to  be  done  in  the 
world  is  harder  than  ever,  and  needs  far  more  than  has 
been  ever  yet  needed  of  thought,  study,  and  seriousness  ; 
miscarry  you  must,  if  you  let  your  daily  doses  of  clap- 
trap make  you  imagine  that  liberty  and  publicity  can  be 
any  substitute  for  these.' — Friendship' s  Garlatid. 

REASONS  FOR  HOPE. 

I  HAVE  a  friend  who  is  very  sanguine,  in  spite  of  the 
dismal  croakings  of  these  foreigners,  about  the  turn 
things  are  even  now  taking  amongst  us.  '  Mean  and 
ignoble  as  our  middle  class  looks,' he  says,  'it  has  this 
capital  virtue,  it  has  seriousness.  With  frivolity,  cultured 
or  uncultured,  you  can  do  nothing  ;  but  with  seriousness 
there  is  always  hope.  Then,  too,  the  present  bent  of  the 
world  towards  amusing  itself,  so  perilous  to  the  highest 
class,  is  curative  and  good  for  our  middle  class.  A  piano 
in  a  Quaker's  drawing-room  is  a  step  for  him  to  a  more 
humane  life  ;  nay,  perhaps  even  the  penny  gaff  of  the 
poor  East-Londoner  is  a  step  for  him  to  a  more  humane 
life.  It  is, — what  example  shall  we  choose  ?  it  is  Strath- 
moj-e,  let  us  say, — it  is  the  one-pound-eleven-and-sixpenny 


152  Politics  and  Society. 


gaff  of  the  young  gentlemen  of  the  clubs  and  the  young 
ladies  of  Belgravia,  that  is  for  them  but  a  step  in  the 
primrose  path  to  the  everlasting  bonfire.  Besides,  say 
what  you  like  of  the  ideallessness  of  aristocracies,  of  the 
vulgarity  of  our  middle  class,  the  immaturity  of  our  lower, 
and  the  poor  chance  which  a  happy  type  of  modern  life 
has  between  them,  consider  this  :  Of  all  that  makes  life 
liberal  and  humane, — of  light,  of  ideas,  of  culture, — 
every  man  in  every  class  of  society  who  has  a  dash  of 
genius  in  him  is  the  born  friend.  By  his  bringing  up, 
by  his  habits,  by  his  interest,  he  may  be  their  enemy  ;  by 
the  primitive,  unalterable  complexion  of  his  nature,  he 
is  their  friend.  Therefore,  the  movement  of  the  modern 
spirit  will  be  more  and  more  felt  among  us,  it  will  spread, 
it  will  prevail.  Nay,'  this  enthusiast  often  continues, 
getting  excited  as  he  goes  on,  '  the  "  Times  "  itself,  which 
so  stirs  some  people's  indignation, — what  is  the  "Times" 
but  a  gigantic  Sancho  Panza,  to  borrow  a  phrase  of  your 
friend  Heine  ; — a  gigantic  Sancho  Panza,  following  by 
an  attraction  he  cannot  resist  that  poor,  mad,  scorned, 
suffering,  sublime  enthusiast,  the  modern  spirit ;  following 
it,  indeed,  with  constant  grumbUng,  expostulation,  and 
opposition,  with  airs  of  protection,  of  compassionate 
superiority,  with  an  incessant  by-play  of  nods,  shrugs, 
and  winks  addressed  to  the  spectators  ;  following  it,  in 
short,  with  all  the  incurable  recalcitrancy  of  a  lower 
nature,  but  still  following  it  ? '     When  my  friend  talks 


Reasons  for  Hope.  1 5  3 

thus,  I  always  shake  my  head,  and  say  that  this  sounds 
very  Hke  the  transcendentalism  which  has  already  brought 
me  into  so  many  scrapes. — Friendship's  Garlmid. 

FERMENT. 

Our  actual  middle  class  has  not  yet,  certainly,  the  fine 
culture,  or  the  living  intelligence,  which  quickened  great 
bodies  of  men  at  creative  epochs  ;  but  it  has  the  forerunner, 
the  preparer,  the  indispensable  initiator  ;  it  is  traversed 
by  a  strong  intellectual  ferment.  It  is  the  middle  class 
which  has  real  mental  ardour,  real  curiosity  ;  it  is  the 
middle  class  which  is  the  great  reader  ;  that  immense 
literature  of  the  day  which  we  see  surging  up  all  round 
us, — literature  the  absolute  value  of  which  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  rate  too  humbly,  literature  hardly  a  word  of 
which  will  reach,  or  deserves  to  reach,  the  future, — it  is 
the  middle  class  which  calls  it  forth,  and  its  evocation  is 
at  least  a  sign  of  a  widespread  mental  movement  in  that 
class.  Will  this  movement  go  on  and  become  fruitful  : 
will  it  conduct  the  middle  class  to  a  high  and  command- 
ing pitch  of  culture  and  intelligence  ?  That  depends  on 
the  sensibility  which  the  middle  class  has  iox  perfection  ; 
that  depends  on  its  power  to  transform  itself — A  French 
Eton, 


154  Politics  and  Society, 


'IS  THIS  JERUSALEM?' 

In  the  Crusade  of  Peter  the  Hermit,  where  the  hosts  that 
marched  were  not  filled  after  the  usual  composition  of 
armies,  but  contained  along  with  the  fighters  whole 
families  of  people, — old  men,  women,  and  children, — swept 
by  the  universal  torrent  of  enthusiasm  towards  the  Holy 
Land,  the  marches,  as  might  have  been  expected,  were 
tedious  and  painful.  Long  before  Asia  was  reached,  long 
before  even  Europe  was  half  traversed,  the  little  children 
in  that  travelling  multitude  began  to  fancy,  with  a  natural 
impatience,  that  their  journey  must  surely  be  drawing  to 
an  end  ;  and  every  evening,  as  they  came  in  sight  of  some 
town  which  was  the  destination  of  that  day's  march,  they 
cried  out  eagerly  to  those  who  were  with  them  :  '  Is  this 
Jerusalem  ? '  No,  poor  children,  not  this  town,  nor  the 
next,  nor  yet  the  next,  is  Jerusalem  ;  Jerusalem  is  far  off, 
and  it  needs  time,  and  strength,  and  much  endurance  to 
reach  it.  Seas  and  mountains,  labour  and  peril,  hunger  and 
thirst,  disease  and  death,  are  between  Jerusalem  and  you. 
So,  when  one  marks  the  ferment  and  stir  of  life  in  the 
middle  class  at  this  moment,  and  sees  this  class  impelled 
to  take  possession  of  the  world,  and  to  assert  itself  and 
its  own  actual  spirit  absolutely,  one  is  disposed  to  exclaim 
to  it :  'Jerusalem  Is  tiot  yet.  Your  present  spirit  is  not 
Jerusalem,  is  not  the  goal  you  have  to  reach,  the  place 
you  may  be  satisfied  in.' — A  French  Eton. 


The  True  Jerusalem.  155 


THE   TRUE  JERUSALEM. 

The  actual  governing  class,  the  English  aristocratic 
class  (in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word  aristocratic), — I 
cannot  wish  that  the  rest  of  the  nation,  the  new  and 
growing  part  of  the  nation,  should  be  transformed  in 
spirit  exactly  according  to  the  image  of  that  class.  The 
merits  and  services  of  that  class  no  one  rates  higher  than 
I  do  ;  no  one  appreciates  higher  than  I  do  the  value  of 
the  relative  standard  of  elevation,  refinement  and  gran- 
deur, which  they  have  exhibited  ;  no  one  would  more 
strenuously  oppose  the  relinquishing  of  this  for  any  lower 
standard.  But  I  cannot  hide  from  myself  that  while 
modern  societies  increasingly  tend  to  find  their  best  life 
in  a  free  and  heightened  spiritual  and  intellectual  activity, 
to  this  tendency  aristocracies  offer  at  least  a  strong  passive 
resistance,  by  their  eternal  prejudices,  their  incurable 
dearth  of  ideas.  In  modern,  rich,  and  industrial  societies, 
they  tend  to  misplace  the  ideal  for  the  classes  below 
them  ;  the  immaterial  chivalrous  ideal  of  high  descent 
and  honour  is,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  of  force 
only  for  aristocracies  themselves  ;  the  immaterial  modern 
ideal  of  spiritual  and  intellectual  perfection  through 
culture,  they  have  not  to  communicate.  What  they  can 
and  do  communicate  is  the  material  ideal  of  splendour 
of  wealth,  and  weight  of  property.     And  this  ideal  is  the 


156  Politics  and  Society. 

ideal  truly  operative  upon  our  middle  classes  at  this 
moment.  To  be  as  rich  as  they  can,  that  they  may  reach 
the  splendour  of  wealth  and  weight  of  property,  and,  with 
time,  the  importance,  of  the  actual  heads  of  society,  is 
their  ambition.  I  do  not  blame  them,  or  the  class  from 
which  they  get  their  ideal ;  all  I  say  is,  that  the  good 
ideal  for  humanity,  the  true  Jerusalem,  is  an  ideal  more 
spiritual  than  splendid  wealth  and  boundless  property,  an 
ideal  in  which  more  can  participate.  The  beloved  friends 
of  humanity  have  been  those  who  made  it  feel  its  ideal 
to  be  in  the  things  of  the  mind  and  spirit,  to  be  in  an 
internal  condition  separable  from  wealth  and  accessible 
to  all, — men  like  St.  Francis,  the  ardent  bridegroom  of 
poverty ;  men  like  the  great  personages  of  antiquity, 
almost  all  of  them,  as  Lacordaire  was  so  fond  of  saying, 
poor.  Therefore,  that  the  middle  class  should  simply 
take  its  ideal  from  the  aristocratic  class,  I  do  not  wish. 
That  the  aristocratic  class  should  be  able  absolutely  to 
assert  itself  and  its  own  spirit,  is  not  my  desire.  No,  no  ; 
they  are  not  Jerusalem. 

The  truth  is,  the  English  spirit  has  to  accomplish  an 
immense  evolution  ;  nor,  as  that  spirit  at  this  moment 
presents  itself  in  any  class  or  description  amongst  us,  can 
one  be  perfectly  satisfied  with  it,  can  one  wish  it  to  pre- 
vail just  as  it  is. 

But  in  a  transformed  middle  class,  in  a  middle  class 
raised  to  a  higher  and  more  genial  culture,  we  may  find, 


Good  of  Philistinisvi.  157 


not  perhaps  Jerusalem,  but  I  am  sure,  a  notable  stage 
towards  it. — A  French  Eton. 

GOOD   OF  PHILISTINISM. 

All  tendencies  of  human  nature  are  in  themselves  vital 
and  profitable  ;  when  they  are  blamed,  they  are  only  to 
be  blamed  relatively,  not  absolutely.  This  holds  true  of 
the  Saxon's  phlegm  as  well  as  of  the  Celt's  sentiment. 
Out  of  the  steady  humdrum  habit  of  the  creeping  Saxon, 
as  the  Celt  calls  him, — out  of  his  way  of  going  near  the 
ground, — has  come,  no  doubt,  Philistinism,  that  plant  of 
essentially  Germanic  growth,  flourishing  with  its  genuine 
marks  only  in  the  German  fatherland,  in  Great  Britain  and 
her  colonies,  and  in  the  United  States  of  America  ;  but 
what  a  soul  of  goodness  there  is  in  Philistinism  itself  1 
and  this  soul  of  goodness  I,  who  am  often  supposed  to  be 
Philis*inism's  mortal  enemy  merely  because  I  do  not 
wish  it  to  have  things  all  its  own  way,  cherish  as  much 
as  anybody.  This  steady-going  habit  leads  at  last,  as 
we  see,  up  to  science,  up  to  the  comprehension  and 
interpretation  of  the  world.  With  us  in  Great  Britain,  it  is 
true,  it  does  not  seem  at  present  to  lead  so  far  as  that ;  it 
is  in  Germany,  where  the  habit  is  more  unmixed,  that  it 
leads  to  science.  Here  with  us  it  seems  at  a  certain  point 
to  meet  with  a  conflicting  force,  which  checks  it  and 
prevents  its  pushing  on  to  science  ;  but  before  reaching 
this  point  what  conquests  has  it  not  won  !  and  all   the 


1 58  Politics  and  Society. 

more,  perhaps,  for  stopping  short  at  this  point,  for  spend- 
ing its  exertions  within  a  bounded  field,  the  field  of  plain 
sense,  of  direct  practical  utility.  How  it  has  augmented 
the  comforts  and  conveniences  of  life  for  us  !  Doors 
that  open,  windows  that  shut,  locks  that  turn,  razors  that 
shave,  coats  that  wear,  watches  that  go,  and  a  thousand 
more  of  such  good  things,  are  the  invention  of  the  Philis- 
tines.— Study  of  Celtic  Literature. 

A    WORD    TO  IRELAND. 

Let  the  Celtic  members  of  this  empire  consider  that 
they  too  have  to  transform  themselves  ;  and  though  the 
summons  to  transform  themselves  be  often  conveyed 
harshly  and  brutally,  and  with  the  cry  to  root  up  their 
wheat  as  well  as  their  tares,  yet  that  is  no  reason  why  the 
summons  should  not  be  followed  so  far  as  their  tares  are 
concerned.  Let  them  consider  that  they  are  inextricably 
bound  up  with  us,  and  that  besides,  if  we  look  into 
the  thing  closely,  we  English,  alien  and  uncongenial  to 
our  Celtic  partners  as  we  may  have  hitherto  shown 
ourselves,  have  notwithstanding,  beyond  perhaps  any 
other  nation,  a  thousand  latent  springs  of  possible 
sympathy  with  them.  Let  them  consider  that  new  ideas 
and  forces  are  stirring  in  England,  that  day  by  day 
these  new  ideas  and  forces  gain  in  power,  and  that 
almost  every  one  of  them  is  the  friend  of  the  Celt  and 
not  his  enemy.     And,  whether  our  Celtic  partners  will 


A  Word  to  Ireland.  159 

consider  this  or  no,  at  any  rate  let  us  ourselves,  all  of  us 
who  are  proud  of  being  the  ministers  of  these  new  ideas, 
work  incessantly  to  procure  for  them  a  wider  and  more 
fruitful  application  ;  work  to  remove  the  main  ground  of 
the  Celt's  alienation  from  the  Englishman,  by  substituting, 
in  place  of  that  type  of  Englishman  with  whom  alone 
the  Celt  has  too  long  been  familiar,  a  new  type,  more 
intelligent,  more  gracious,  and  more  humane. — Study  of 
Celtic  Literature. 

REVOLUTION  BY  DUE   COURSE  OF  LAW. 

We  are  on  our  way  to  what  the  late  Duke  of  Wellington, 
with  his  strong  sagacity,  foresaw  and  admirably  described 
as  'a  revolution  by  due  course  of  law.'  This  is  un- 
doubtedly,— if  we  are  still  to  live  and  grow,  and  this 
famous  nation  is  not  to  stagnate  and  dwindle  away  on 
the  one  hand,  or,  on  the  other,  to  perish  miserably  in 
mere  anarchy  and  confusion, — what  we  are  on  the  way 
to.  Great  changes  there  must  be,  for  a  revolution  cannot 
accomplish  itself  without  great  changes  ;  yet  order  there 
must  be,  for  without  order  a  revolution  cannot  accom- 
plish itself  by  due  course  of  law.  So  whatever  brings 
risk  of  tumult  and  disorder,  multitudinous  processions  in 
the  streets  of  our  crowded  towns,  multitudinous  meetings 
in  their  public  places  and  parks, — demonstrations  per- 
fectly unnecessary  in  the  present  course  of  our  affairs, — 
our  best  self,  or  right  reason,  plainly  enjoins  us  to  set  our 


1 60  Politics  and  Society. 

face  against.  It  enjoins  us  to  encourage  and  uphold 
the  occupants  of  the  executive  power,  whoever  they  may 
be,  in  firmly  prohibiting  them.  But  it  does  this  clearly 
and  resolutely,  and  is  thus  a  real  principle  of  authority, 
because  it  does  it  with  a  free  conscience  ;  because,  in 
thus  provisionally  strengthening  the  executive  power,  it 
knows  that  it  is  not  doing  this  merely  to  enable  our 
Tory  aristocrat  to  affirm  himself  as  against  our  Radical 
working  man,  or  our  middle-class  Dissenter  to  affirm 
himself  as  against  both.  It  knows  that  it  is  stablishing 
the  State,  or  organ  of  our  collective  best  self,  of  our 
national  right  reason.  And  it  has  the  testimony  of  con- 
science that  it  is  stablishing  the  State  on  behalf  of  what- 
ever great  changes  are  needed,  just  as  much  as  on  behalf 
of  order  ;  stablishing  it  to  deal  just  as  stringently,  when 
the  time  comes,  with  our  Tory  aristocrat's  prejudices,  or 
with  the  fanaticism  of  our  middle-class  Dissenter,  as  it 
deals  with  cur  Radical  working  man's  street-processions. — 
Culture  and  Anarchy. 

STATE  ACTION. 

The  question  is,  whether,  retaining  all  its  power  of  con- 
trol over  a  government  which  should  abuse  its  trust,  the 
nation  may  not  now  find  advantage  in  voluntarily  allowing 
to  government  purposes  somewhat  ampler,  and  limits  some- 
what wider  within  which  to  execute  them,  than  formerly  ; 
whether  the  nation  may  not  thus  acquire  in  the  State  an 


State  Action.  1 6 1 


ideal  of  high  reason  and  right  feeling,  representing  its  best 
self,  commanding  general  respect,  and  forming  a  rallying- 
point  for  the  intelligence  and  for  the  worthiest  instincts 
of  the  community,  which  will  herein  find  a  true  bond  of 
union. — Mixed  Essays. 

WHAT  IS   THE  STATE? 

The  State, — but  what  is  the  State?  cry  many.  The  State 
is  properly  just  what  Burke  called  it  :  the  nation  in  its 
collective  and  corporate  character.  The  State  is  the  repre- 
sentative acting-power  of  the  nation  ;  the  action  of  the 
State  is  the  representative  action  of  the  nation.  It  is 
common  to  hear  the  depredators  of  State-action  run 
through  a  string  of  Ministers'  names,  and  then  say  : 
*  Here  is  really  your  State  ;  would  you  accept  the  action 
of  these  men  as  your  own  representative  action  ?  in  what 
respect  is  their  judgment  on  national  affairs  likely  to  be 
any  better  than  that  of  the  rest  of  the  world  ? '  In  the 
first  place  I  answer  :  Even  supposing  them  to  be  origin- 
ally no  better  or  wiser  than  the  rest  of  the  world,  they 
have  two  great  advantages  from  their  position  :  access  to 
almost  boundless  means  of  information,  and  the  enlarge- 
ment of  mind  which  the  habit  of  dealing  with  great  affairs 
tends  to  produce.  Their  position  itself,  therefore,  if  they 
are  men  of  only  average  honesty  and  capacity,  tends  to 
give  them  a  fitness  for  acting  on  behalf  of  the  nation 

M 


1 62  Politics  and  Society. 

superior  to  that  of  other  men  of  equal  honesty  and  capa- 
city who  are  not  in  the  same  position.  This  fitness  may 
be  yet  further  increased  by  treating  them  as  persons  on 
whom,  indeed,  a  very  grave  responsibility  has  fallen,  and 
from  whom  very  much  will  be  expected  ; — nothing  less 
than  the  representing,  each  of  them  in  his  own  depart- 
ment, under  the  control  of  Parliament,  and  aided  by  the 
suggestions  of  public  opinion,  the  collective  energy  and 
intelligence  of  his  nation.  By  treating  them  as  men  on 
whom  all  this  devolves  to  do,  to  their  honour  if  they  do 
it  well,  to  their  shame  if  they  do  it  ill,  one  probably  aug- 
ments their  faculty  of  well-doing  ;  as  it  is  excellently 
said  :  '  To  treat  men  as  if  they  were  better  than  they  are, 
is  the  surest  way  to  itiake  them  better  than  they  are.'  But 
to  treat  them  as  if  they  had  been  shuffled  into  their  places 
by  a  lucky  accident,  were  most  likely  soon  to  be  shuffled 
out  of  them  again,  and  meanwhile  ought  to  magnify  them- 
selves and  their  office  as  little  as  possible  ;  to  treat  them 
as  if  they  and  their  functions  could  without  much  incon- 
venience be  quite  dispensed  with,  and  they  ought  per- 
petually to  be  admiring  their  own  inconceivable  good 
fortune  in  being  permitted  to  discharge  them  ; — this  is 
the  way  to  paralyse  all  high  effort  in  the  executive 
government,  to  extinguish  all  lofty  sense  of  responsi- 
bility ;  to  make  its  members  either  merely  solicitous  for 
the  gross  advantages,  the  emolument  and  self-import- 
ance, which  they  derive  from  their  offices,  or  else  timid, 


What  is  the  State  f  163 

apologetic,  and  self-mistrustful  in  filling  them  ;  in  either 
case,  formal  and  inefficient. 

But  in  the  second  place  I  answer  :  If  the  executive 
government  is  really  in  the  hands  of  men  no  wiser  than 
the  bulk  of  mankind,  of  men  whose  action  an  intelligent 
man  would  be  unwilling  to  accept  as  representative  of 
his  own  action,  whose  fault  is  that  ?  It  is  the  fault  of  the 
nation  itself,  which,  not  being  in  the  hands  of  a  despot 
or  of  an  oligarchy,  being  free  to  control  the  choice  of  those 
who  are  to  sum  up  and  concentrate  its  action,  controls  it 
in  such  a  manner,  that  it  allows  to  be  chosen,  agents  so 
little  in  its  confidence,  or  so  mediocre,  or  so  incompetent, 
that  it  thinks  the  best  thing  that  can  be  done  with  them 
is  to  reduce  their  action  as  nearly  as  possible  to  a  nullity. 
Hesitating,  blundering,  unintelligent,  inefficacious,  the 
action  of  the  State  may  be  ;  but,  such  as  it  is,  it  is  the 
collective  action  of  the  nation  itself,  and  the  nation  is 
responsible  for  it.  It  is  our  own  action  which  we  suffer 
to  be  thus  unsatisfactory.  Nothing  can  free  us  from  this 
responsibility.  The  conduct  of  our  affairs  is  in  our  own 
power.  To  carry  on  into  its  executive  proceedings  the 
indecision,  conflict,  and  discordance  of  its  parliamentary 
debates,  may  be  a  natural  defect  of  a  free  nation,  but  it 
is  certainly  a  defect  ;  it  is  a  dangerous  error  to  call  it,  as 
some  do,  a  perfection.  The  want  of  concert,  reason,  and 
organisation  in  the  State,  is  the  want  of  concert,  reason, 
and  organisation  in  the  collective  nation. — Mixed  Essays. 

M  2 


1 64  Politics  and  Society. 


THE  SAME. 

Is  a  citizen's  relation  to  the  State  that  of  a  dependent  to 
a  parental  benefactor?  By  no  means  ;  it  is  that  of  a 
member  in  a  partnership  to  the  whole  firm.  The  citizens 
of  a  State,  the  members  of  a  society,  are  really  a  partner- 
ship ;  '•  a  partnership,^  as  Burke  nobly  says,  '  m  all  science, 
in  all  art,  in  every  virtue,  in  all  perfection.''  Towards  this 
great  final  design  of  their  connexion,  they  apply  the  aids 
which  co-operative  association  can  give  them. — A  Freiich 
Eton. 

STATE-HELP  NOT  DEGRADING. 

How  vain,  then,  and  how  meaningless,  to  tell  a  man 
who,  for  the  instruction  of  his  offspring,  receives  aid  from 
the  State,  that  he  is  humiliated  !  Humiliated  by  receiving 
help  for  himself  as  an  individual  from  himself  in  his  cor- 
porate and  associated  capacity  !  help  to  which  his  own 
money,  as  a  tax-payer,  contributes,  and  for  which,  as  a 
result  of  the  joint  energy  and  intelligence  of  the  whole 
community  in  employing  its  powers,  he  himself  deserves 
some  of  the  praise  !  He  is  no  more  humiliated  than  one 
is  humiliated  by  being  on  the  foundation  of  the  Charter- 
house or  of  Winchester,  or  by  holding  a  scholarship  or  a 
fellowship  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  Nay  (if  there  be 
any  humiliation  here),  not  so  much.  For  the  amount  of 
benefaction,  the  amount  of  obligation,  the  amount,  there- 


State  help  not  degrading.  165 

fore,  I  suppose,  of  humiliation,  diminishes  as  the  public 
character  of  the  aid  becomes  more  undeniable.  He  is 
no  more  humiliated  than  when  he  crosses  London  Bridge, 
or  walks  down  the  King's  Road,  or  visits  the  British 
Museum.  But  it  is  one  of  the  extraordinary  inconsis- 
tencies of  some  English  people  in  this  matter,  that  they 
keep  all  their  cry  of  humiliation  and  degradation  for  help 
which  the  State  offers.  A  man  is  not  pauperised,  is  not 
degraded,  is  not  oppressively  obliged,  by  taking  aid  for 
his  son's  schooling  from  Mr.  Woodard's  subscribers,  or 
from  the  next  squire,  or  from  the  next  rector,  or  from  the 
next  ironmonger,  or  from  the  next  druggist  ;  he  is  only 
pauperised  when  he  takes  it  from  the  State,  when  he  helps 
to  give  it  himself  ! — A  French  Eton. 

ANTI  ANARCHY. 

Even  for  the  sake  of  the  actual  present,  but  far  more  for 
the  sake  of  the  future,  the  lovers  of  culture  are  unswerv- 
ingly and  with  a  good  conscience  the  opposers  of  anarchy. 
And  not  as  the  Barbarians  and  Philistines,  whose  honesty 
and  whose  sense  of  humour  make  them  shrink,  as  we 
have  seen,  from  treating  the  State  as  too  serious  a  thing, 
and  from  giving  it  too  much  power  ; — for  indeed  the  only 
State  they  know  of,  and  think  they  administer,  is  the 
expression  of  their  ordinary  self.  And  though  the  head- 
strong and  violent  extreme  among  them  might  gladly 
arm  this  with  full  authority,  yet  their  virtuous  mean  is,  as 


1 66  Politics  and  Society. 


we  have  said,  pricked  in  conscience  at  doing  this  ;  and 
so  our  Barbarian  Secretaries  of  State  let  the  Park  railings 
be  broken  down,  and  our  Philistine  Alderman- Colonels 
let  the  London  roughs  rob  and  beat  the  bystanders. 
But  we,  beholding  in  the  State  no  expression  of  our 
ordinary  self,  but  even  already,  as  it  were,  the  appointed 
frame  and  prepared  vessel  of  our  best  self,  and,  for  the 
future,  our  best  self's  powerful,  beneficent  and  sacred 
expression  and  organ, — we  are  willing  and  resolved,  even 
now,  to  strengthen  against  anarchy  the  trembling  hands 
of  our  Barbarian  Home  Secretaries,  and  the  feeble  knees 
of  our  Philistine  Alderman-Colonels  ;  and  to  tell  them, 
that  it  is  not  really  in  behalf  of  their  own  ordinary  self 
that  they  are  called  to  protect  the  Park  railings,  and  to 
suppress  the  London  roughs,  but  in  behalf  of  the  best 
self  both  of  themselves  and  of  all  of  us  in  the  future. — 
Culture  and  Anarchy. 


III. 

PHILOSOPHY  AND    RELIGION. 


HEBRAISM  AND  HELLENISM. 

We  may  regard  the  energy  driving  at  practice,  the  para- 
mount sense  of  the  obligation  of  duty,  self-control,  and 
work,  the  earnestness  in  going  manfully  with  the  best 
light  we  have,  as  one  force.  And  we  may  regard  the 
intelligence  driving  at  those  ideas  which  are,  after  all,  the 
basis  of  right  practice,  the  ardent  sense  for  all  the  new 
and  changing  combinations  of  them  which  man's  develop- 
ment brings  with  it,  the  indomitable  impulse  to  know 
and  adjust  them  perfectly,  as  another  force.  And  these 
two  forces  we  may  regard  as  in  some  sense  rivals, — rivals 
not  by  the  necessity  of  their  own  nature,  but  as  exhibited 
in  man  and  his  history, — and  rivals  dividing  the  empire 
of  the  world  between  them.  And  to  give  these  forces 
names  from  the  two  races  of  men  who  have  supplied  the 
most  signal  and  splendid  manifestations  of  them,  we  may 
call  them  respectively  the  forces  of  Hebraism  and  Hel- 
lenism. Hebraism  and  Hellenism,  —between  these  two 
points  of  influence  moves  our  world.  At  one  time  it 
feels  more  powerfully  the  attraction  of  one  of  them,  at 
another  time  of  the  other  ;  and  it  ought  to  be,  though 
it  never  is,  evenly  and  happily  balanced  between  them. 


1 70  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

The  final  aim  of  both  Hellenism  and  Hebraism,  as 
of  all  great  spiritual  disciplines,  is  no  doubt  the  same  : 
man's  perfection  or  salvation.  The  very  language  which 
they  both  of  them  use  in  schooUng  us  to  reach  this  aim 
is  often  identical.  Even  when  their  language  indicates 
by  variation,—  sometimes  a  broad  variation,  often  a  but 
slight  and  subtle  variation, — the  different  courses  of 
thought  which  are  uppermost  in  each  discipline,  even 
then  the  unity  of  the  final  end  and  aim  is  still  apparent. 
To  employ  the  actual  words  of  that  discipline  with  which 
we  ourselves  are  all  of  us  most  familiar,  and  the  words  of 
which,  therefore,  come  most  home  to  us,  that  final  end 
and  aim  is  'that  we  might  be  partakers  of  the  divine 
nature.'  These  are  the  words  of  a  Hebrew  apostle;  but, 
of  Hellenism  and  Hebraism  alike,  this  is,  I  say,  the  aim. 

When  the  two  are  confronted,  as  they  very  often  are 
confronted,  it  is  nearly  always  with  what  I  may  call  a 
rhetorical  purpose  ;  the  speaker's  whole  design  is  to 
exalt  and  enthrone  one  of  the  two,  and  he  uses  the  other 
only  as  a  foil  and  to  enable  him  the  better  to  give  effect 
to  his  purpose.  Obviously,  with  us,  it  is  usually  Hellen- 
ism which  is  thus  reduced  to  minister  to  the  triumph  of 
Hebraism.  There  is  a  sermon  on  Greece  and  the  Greek 
spirit  by  a  man  never  to  be  mentioned  without  interest 
and  respect,  Frederick  Robertson,  in  which  this  rheto- 
rical use  of  Greece  and  the  Greek  spirit,  and  the  inade- 
quate exhibition  of  them  necessarily  consequent  upon 


Hebraism  and  Hellenism.  171 

this,  is  almost  ludicrous,  and  would  be  censurable  if  it 
were  not  to  be  explained  by  the  exigencies  of  a  sermon. 
On  the  other  hand,  Heinrich  Heine,  and  other  writers  of 
his  sort,  give  us  the  spectacle  of  the  tables  completely 
turned,  and  of  Hebraism  brought  in  just  as  a  foil  and 
contrast  to  Hellenism,  and  to  make  the  superiority  of 
Hellenism  more  manifest.  In  both  these  cases  there  is 
injustice  and  misrepresentation.  The  aim  and  end  of 
both  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  is,  as  I  have  said,  one 
and  the  same,  and  this  aim  and  end  is  august  and  ad- 
mirable. 

Still,  they  pursue  this  aim  by  very  different  courses. 
The  uppermost  idea  with  Hellenism  is  to  see  things  as 
they  really  are  ;  the  uppermost  idea  with  Hebraism  is 
conduct  and  obedience.  Nothing  can  do  away  with 
this  ineffaceable  difference.  The  Greek  quarrel  with 
the  body  and  its  desires  is,  that  they  hinder  right  think- 
ing, the  Hebrew  quarrel  with  them  is,  that  they  hinder 
right  acting.  '  He  that  keepeth  the  law,  happy  is  he  ; ' 
'  Blessed  is  the  man  that  feareth  the  Eternal,  that  de- 
lighteth  greatly  in  his  commandments  ; ' — that  is  the 
Hebrew  notion  of  felicity  ;  and,  pursued  with  passion 
and  tenacity,  this  notion  would  not  let  the  Hebrew  rest 
till,  as  is  well  known,  he  had  at  last  got  out  of  the  law 
a  network  of  prescriptions  to  enwrap  his  whole  life,  to 
govern  every  moment  of  it,  every  impulse,  every  action. 
The  Greek  notion  of  felicity,  on  the  other  hand,  is  pe> 


172  PJiilosopJiy  and  Religion. 

fectly   conveyed    in   these    words   of    a    great    French 
moralist  :  '  Cest  le  bonheur  des  hotnmes,'' — when  ?  when 
they  abhor  that  which  is  evil  ? — no  ;  when  they  exercise 
themselves  in  the  law  of  the  Lord  day  and  night  ? — no  ; 
when  they  die  daily  ? — no  ;  when  they  walk  about  the 
New  Jerusalem   with   palms   in  their  hands  ? — no  ;  but 
when     they    think    aright,    when    their    thought    hits, 
'■  quand  Us  pensent  juste.''     At  the  bottom  of  both  the 
Greek  and  the  Hebrew  notion  is  the  desire,  native  in 
man,  for  reason  and  the  will  of  God,  the  feeling  after 
the  universal  order, — in  a  word,  the  love  of  God.     But, 
while  Hebraism  seizes  upon  certain  plain,  capital  inti- 
mations of  the  universal  order,  and  rivets  itself,  one  may 
say,  with  unequalled  grandeur  of  earnestness  and  inten- 
sity on  the  study  and  observance  of  them,  the  bent  of 
Hellenism  is  to  follow,  with  flexible  activity,  the  whole 
play   of    the   universal   order,    to    be   apprehensive    of 
missing  any  part  of  it,  of  sacrificing  one  part  to  another, 
to  slip  away  from  resting  in  this  or  that  intimation  of  it, 
however  capital.     An  unclouded  clearness  of  mind,  an 
unimpeded  play  of  thought,  is  what  this  bent  drives  at. 
The  governing  idea  of  Hellenism  is  spontaneity  of  con- 
scmisness  ;  that   of  Hebraism,  strictness  of  conscience. — 
Culture  and  Anarchy. 


Renascence  and  Reformation.  1 73 


RENASCENCE  AND  REFORMATION. 

The  Renascence  is,  in  great  part,  a  return  towards  the 
pagan  spirit,  in  the  special  sense  in  which  I  have  been 
using  the  word  pagan  ; — a  return  towards  the  Ufe  of  the 
senses  and  the  understanding.  The  Reformation,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  the  very  opposite  to  this;  in  Luther  there  is 
nothing  Greek  or  pagan;  vehemently  as  he  attacked  the 
adoration  of  St.  Francis,  Luther  had  himself  something  of 
St.  Francis  in  him  ;  he  was  a  thousand  times  more  akin  to 
St.  Francis  than  to  Theocritus  or  to  Voltaire.  The  Re- 
formation,— I  do  not  mean  the  inferior  piece  given  under 
that  name,  by  Henry  the  Eighth  and  a  second-rate  com- 
pany, in  this  island,  but  the  real  Reformation,  the  German 
Reformation,  Luther's  Reformation, — was  a  reaction  of 
the  moral  and  spiritual  sense  against  the  carnal  and  pagan 
sense.  It  was  a  religious  revival  like  St.  Francis's,  but 
this  time  against  the  Church  of  Rome,  not  within  her; 
for  the  carnal  and  pagan  sense  had  now,  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Church  of  Rome  herself,  its  prime  repre- 
sentative. And  the  grand  reaction,  once  more,  against  tho 
rule  of  the  heart  and  imagination,  the  strong  return  to- 
wards the  rule  of  the  senses  and  understanding,  is  in  the 
eighteenth  century. — Essays  in  Criticism. 


1 74  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


HELLENISM. 

To  get  rid  of  one's  ignorance,  to  see  things  as  they  are, 
and  by  seeing  them  as  they  are  to  see  them  in  their 
beauty,  is  the  simple  and  attractive  ideal  which  Hellenism 
holds  out  before  human  nature.  From  the  simplicity 
and  charm  of  this  ideal,  Hellenism,  and  human  life  in 
the  hands  of  Hellenism,  is  invested  with  a  kind  of  aerial 
ease,  clearness,  and  radiancy  ;  they  are  full  of  what  we 
call  sweetness  and  light.  Difficulties  are  kept  out  of 
view,  and  the  beauty  and  rationalness  of  the  ideal  have  all 
our  thoughts.  '  The  best  man  is  he  who  most  tries  to 
perfect  himself,  and  the  happiest  man  is  he  who  most  feels 
that  he  is  perfecting  himself,' — this  account  of  the  matter  by 
Socrates,  the  true  Socrates  of  the  '  Memorabilia,' has  some- 
thing so  simple,  spontaneous,  and  unsophisticated  about 
it,  that  it  seems  to  fill  us  with  clearness  and  hope  when 
we  hear  it. — Culture  atid  Anarchy. 

HEBRAISM. 

As  Hellenism  speaks  of  thinking  clearly,  seeing  things 
in  their  essence  and  beauty,  as  a  grand  and  precious  feat 
for  man  to  achieve,  so  Hebraism  speaks  of  becoming 
conscious  of  sin,  of  awakening  to  a  sense  of  sin,  as  a  feat 
of  this  kind.  It  is  obvious  to  what  wide  divergence 
these  differing  tendencies,  actively  followed,  must  lead- 
As  one  passes  and  repasses  from  Hellenism  to  Hebraism, 


Hebraism.  175 


from  Plato  to  St  Paul,  one  feels  inclined  to  rub  one's 
eyes  and  ask  oneself  whether  man  is  indeed  a  gentle  and 
simple  being,  showing  the  traces  of  a  noble  and  divine 
nature  ;  or  an  unhappy  chained  captive,  labouring  with 
groanings  that  cannot  be  uttered  to  free  himself  from  the 
body  of  this  death. 

Apparently  it  was  the  Hellenic  conception  of  human 
nature  which  was  unsound,  for  the  world  could  not  live 
by  it.     Absolutely  to  call  it  unsound,  however,  is  to  fall 
into  the  common  error  of  its  Hebraising  enemies  ;  but  it 
was  unsound  at  that  particular  moment  of  man's  deve- 
lopment, it  was  premature.     The  indispensable  basis  of 
conduct  and  self-control,  the  platform  upon  which  alone 
the  perfection  aimed  at  by  Greece  can  come  into  bloom, 
was  not  to  be  reached  by  our  race  so  easily  ;  centuries  of 
probation  and  discipline  were  needed  to  bring  us  to  it. 
Therefore  the  bright  promise  of  Hellenism  faded,  and 
Hebraism  ruled  the  world.     Then  was  seen  that  asto- 
nishing spectacle,  so  well  marked  by  the  often  quoted 
words  of  the  prophet  Zechariah,  when  men  of  all  lan- 
guages and  nations  took  hold  of  the  skirt  of  him  that  was 
a  Jew,  saying  : — '  We  will  go  with  you,  for  we  have  heard 
that  God  is  toith  you.'     And  the  Hebraism  which  thus 
received  and  ruled  a  world  all  gone  out  of  the  way  and 
altogether  become  unprofitable,  was,  and  could  not  but 
be,    the   later,    the  more   spiritual,   the   more  attractive 
development  of  Hebraism.     It  was  Christianity  ;  that  is 


T76  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

to  say,  Hebraism  aiming  at  self-conquest  and  rescue 
from  the  thrall  of  vile  affections,  not  by  obedience  to  the 
letter  of  a  law,  but  by  conformity  to  the  image  of  a  self- 
sacrificing  example.  To  a  world  stricken  with  moral 
enervation  Christianity  offered  its  spectacle  of  an  inspired 
self-sacrifice  ;  to  men  who  refused  themselves  nothing, 
it  showed  one  who  refused  himself  everything  ^— '  my 
Saviour  banished  joy  ! '  says  George  Herbert.  When  the 
alma  Venus,  the  life-giving  and  joy-giving  power  of 
nature,  so  fondly  cherished  by  the  Pagan  world,  could 
not  save  her  followers  from  self-dissatisfaction  and  ennui, 
the  severe  words  of  the  apostle  came  bracingly  and  re- 
freshingly :  '  Let  no  man  deceive  you  with  vain  words, 
for  because  of  these  things  cometh  the  wrath  of  God 
upon  the  children  of  disobedience.'  Through  age  after 
age  and  generation  after  generation,  our  race,  or  all  that 
part  of  our  race  which  was  most  living  and  progressive, 
was  baptised  ifito  a  death  ;  and  endeavoured,  by  suffering 
in  the  flesh,  to  cease  from  sin.  Of  this  endeavour,  the 
animating  labours  and  afflictions  of  early  Christianity, 
the  touching  asceticism  of  mediaeval  Christianity,  are  the 
great  historical  manifestations.  Literary  monuments  of 
it,  each  in  its  own  way  incomparable,  remain  in  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  in  St.  Augustine's  '  Confessions,'  and 
in  the  two  original  and  simplest  books  of  the  '  Imitation.' 
— Culture  and  Anarchy. 


Hebraism  of  the  English.  i  7  7 

HEBRAISM  OF  THE  ENGLISH. 

Eminently  Indo-European  by  its  humour,  by  the  power 
it  shows,  through  this  gift,  of  imaginatively  acknowledg- 
ing the  multiform  aspects  of  the  problem  of  life,  and  of 
thus  getting  itself  unfixed  from  its  own  over-certainty,  of 
smiling  at  its  own  over-tenacity,  our  race  has  yet  (and  a 
great  part  of  its  strength  lies  here),  in  matters  of  practical 
life  and  moral  conduct,  a  strong  share  of  the  assuredness, 
the  tenacity,  the  intensity  of  the  Hebrews.  This  turn 
manifested  itself  in  Puritanism,  and  has  had  a  great  part 
in  shaping  our  history  for  the  last  two  hundred  years. 
Undoubtedly  it  checked  and  changed  amongst  us  that 
movement  of  the  Renascence  which  we  see  producing  in 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth  such  wonderful  fruits.  Un- 
doubtedly it  stopped  the  prominent  rule  and  direct 
development  of  that  order  of  ideas  which  we  call  by  the 
name  of  Hellenism,  and  gave  the  first  rank  to  a  different 
order  of  ideas.  Apparently,  too,  as  we  said  of  the  former 
defeat  of  Hellenism,  if  Hellenism  was  defeated,  this 
shows  that  Hellenism  was  imperfect,  and  that  its  ascen- 
dency at  that  moment  would  not  have  been  for  the 
world's  good. 

Yet  there  is  a  very  important  difference  between  the 
defeat  inflicted  on  Hellenism  by  Christianity  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago,  and  the  check  given  to  the  Renas- 
cence by  Puritanism.     1  he  greatness  of  the  difference  is 

N 


I  yS  Philosophy  and  Religio7i. 


well  measured  by  the  difference  in  force,  beauty,  signifi- 
cance and  usefulness,  between  primitive  Christianity  and 
Protestantism.  Eighteen  hundred  years  ago  it  was  alto- 
gether the  hour  of  Hebraism.  Primitive  Christianity  was 
legitimately  and  truly  the  ascendent  force  in  the  world  at 
that  time,  and  the  way  of  mankind's  progress  lay  through 
its  full  development.  Another  hour  in  man's  develop- 
ment began  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  the  main  road 
of  his  progress  then  lay  for  a  time  through  Hellenism. 
Puritanism  was  no  longer  the  central  current  of  the 
world's  progress,  it  was  a  side  stream  crossing  the  central 
current  and  checking  it.  The  cross  and  the  check  may 
have  been  necessary  and  salutary,  but  that  does  not  do 
away  with  the  essential  difference  between  the  main 
stream  of  man's  advance  and  a  cross  or  side  stream. 
For  more  than  two  hundred  years  the  main  stream  of 
man's  advance  has  moved  towards  knowing  himself  and 
the  world,  seeing  things  as  they  are,  spontaneity  of  con- 
sciousness ;  the  main  impulse  of  a  great  part,  and  that 
the  strongest  part,  of  our  nation,  has  been  towards  strict- 
ness of  conscience.  They  have  made  the  secondary  the 
principal  at  the  wrong  moment,  and  the  principal  they 
have  at  the  wrong  moment  treated  as  secondary. 
This  contravention  of  the  natural  order  has  produced, 
as  such  contravention  always  must  produce,  a  certain 
confusion  and  false  movement,  of  which  we  are  now 
beginning  to  feel,  in  almost  every  direction,  the  incon- 


Hebraism  of  the  English.  i  79 

venience.  In  all  directions  our  habitual  courses  of' 
action  seem  to  be  losing  efficaciousness,  credit,  and 
control,  both  with  others  and  even  with  ourselves. 
Everywhere  we  see  the  beginnings  of  confusion,  and  we 
want  a  clue  to  some  sound  order  and  authority.  This 
we  can  only  get  by  going  back  upon  the  actual  instincts 
and  forces  which  rule  our  life,  seeing  them  as  they  really 
are,  connecting  them  with  other  instincts  and  forces,  and 
enlarging  our  whole  view  and  rule  of  life. — Culture  and 
Anarchy. 

THE  PURITANS  AND  RELIGION. 

Is  it  contended  that  the  Puritan  triumph  in  the  Civil  War 
was  the  triumph  of  religion, — of  conduct  and  righteous- 
ness ?  Alas  !  it  was  its  defeat.  So  grossly  imperfect,  so 
false,  was  the  Puritan  conception  and  presentation  of 
righteousness,  so  at  war  with  the  ancient  and  inbred 
integrity,  piety,  good  nature,  and  good  humour  of  the 
English  people,  that  it  led  straight  to  moral  anarchy,  the 
profligacy  of  the  Restoration.  It  led  to  the  court,  the 
manners,  the  stage,  the  literature,  which  we  know.  It  led 
to  the  long  discredit  of  serious  things,  to  the  dryness  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  to  the  '  irreligion '  which  vexed 
Butler's  righteous  soul,  to  the  aversion  and  incapacity  for 
all  deep  inquiries  concerning  religion  and  its  sanctions,  to 
the  belief  so  frequently  found  now  among  the  followers  of 
natural  science  that  such  inquiries  are  unprofitable.    It  led, 

N    2 


1 80  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


'  amongst  that  middle  class  where  religion  still  lived  on 
to  a  narrowness,  an  intellectual  poverty,  almost  incredible. 
They  '  entered  the  prison  of  Puritanism,  and  had  the  key 
turned  upon  their  spirit  there  for  two  hundred  years.'  It 
led  to  that  character  of  their  steady  and  respectable  life 
which  makes  one  shiver  :  its  hideousness,  its  immense 
ennui. — Mixed  Essays. 

FUTURE   OF  HEBRAISM. 

Hebraism  has  its  faults  and  dangers;  still,  the  intense 
and  convinced  energy  with  which  the  Hebrew,  both  of 
the  Old  and  of  the  New  Testament,  threw  himself  upon 
his  ideal  of  righteousness,  and  which  inspired  the  incom- 
parable definition  of  the  great  Christian  virtue,  faith, — 
the  substantiation  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things 
not  seen, — this  energy  of  devotion  to  its  ideal  has  belonged 
to  Hebraism  alone.  As  our  idea  of  perfection  widens 
beyond  the  narrow  limits  to  which  the  over-rigour  of 
Hebraising  has  tended  to  confine  it,  we  shall  yet  come 
again  to  Hebraism  for  that  devout  energy  in  embracing 
our  ideal,  which  alone  can  give  to  man  the  happiness  of 
doing  what  he  knows.  '  If  ye  know  these  things,  happy 
are  ye  if  ye  do  them  1 ' — the  last  word  for  infirm  humanity 
will  always  be  that.  For  this  word,  reiterated  with  a 
power  now  sublime,  now  affecting,  but  always  admirable, 
our  race  will,  as  long  as  the  world  lasts,  return  to 
Hebraism;  and  the  Bible,  which  preaches  this  word,  will 


Future  of  Hebraism.  1 8 1 

for  ever  remain,  as  Goethe  called  it,  not  only  a  national 
book,  but  the  Book  of  the  '^sXions.—Culhire  and  Anarchy. 

THE  LIBERALS  AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

Liberals  who  have  no  conception  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion as  of  a  real  need  of  the  community,  which  the  com- 
munity has  to  satisfy,  should  learn  to  fix  their  view  upon 
the  simple  source,  common  to  CathoUcs  and  Protestants 
alike,  of  Christianity's  power  and  permanence.  The 
power  and  permanence  come  from  Christianity's  being  a 
real  source  of  cure  for  a  real  bondage  and  misery.  Men 
have  adapted  the  source  to  their  use  according  to  their 
lights,  often  very  imperfect ; — have  piled  fantastic  build- 
ings around  it,  carried  its  healing  waters  by  strange  and 
intricate  conduits,  done  their  best  to  make  it  no  longer 
recognisable.  But,  in  their  fashion,  they  have  used  and 
they  do  still  use  it ;  and  whenever  their  religion  is  treated, 
often  because  of  their  mishandling  and  disfigurement  of 
it,  as  an  obsolete  nuisance  to  be  discouraged  and  helped 
to  die  out,  a  profound  sentiment  in  them  rebels  against 
such  an  outrage,  because  they  are  conscious  not  of  their 
vain  disfigurements  of  the  Christian  religion,  but  of  its 
genuine  curativeness. — Mixed  Essays. 

CATHOLICISM. 

In  spite  of  all  the  shocks  which  the  feelings  of  a  good 
Catholic  have   in  this   Protestant  country  inevitably  to 


1 82  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

undergo,  in  spite  of  the  contemptuous  insensibility  to 
the  grandeur  of  Rome  which  he  finds  so  general  and  so 
hard  to  bear,  how  much  has  he  to  console  him,  how  many 
acts  of  homage  to  the  greatness  of  his  religion  may  he  see 
if  he  has  his  eyes  open  !  I  will  tell  him  of  one  of  them. 
Let  him  go  in  London  to  that  delightful  spot,  that  Happy 
Island  in  Bloomsbury,  the  reading-room  of  the  British 
Museum.  Let  him  visit  its  sacred  quarter,  the  region  where 
its  theological  books  are  placed.  I  am  almost  afraid  to 
say  what  he  will  find  there,  for  fear  Mr.  Spurgeon,  like 
a  second  Caliph  Omar,  should  give  the  library  to  the 
flames.  He  will  find  an  immense  Catholic  work,  the 
collection  of  the  Abbe  Migne,  lording  it  over  that  whole 
region,  reducing  to  insignificance  the  feeble  Protestant 
forces  which  hang  upon  its  skirts.  Protestantism  is  duly 
represented,  indeed  :  the  librarian  knows  his  business  too 
well  to  suffer  it  to  be  otherwise.  All  the  varieties  of  Pro- 
testantism are  there.  There  is  the  Library  of  Anglo- 
Catholic  Theology,  learned,  decorous,  exemplary,  but  a 
little  uninteresting  ;  there  are  the  works  of  Calvin,  rigid, 
militant,  menacing  ;  there  are  the  works  of  Dr.  Chalmers, 
the  Scotch  thistle  valiantly  doing  duty  as  the  rose  of 
Sharon,  but  keeping  something  very  Scotch  about  it  all  the 
time ;  there  are  the  works  of  Dr.  Channing,  the  last  word  of 
religious  philosophy  in  a  land  where  every  one  has  some 
culture,  and  where  superiorities  are  discountenanced, — 
the  flower  of  moral  and  intelligent  mediocrity.     But  how 


Ca  thulicis7n.  183 


are  all  these  divided  against  one  another,  and  how,  though 
they  were  all  united,  are  they  dwarfed  by  the  Catholic 
Leviathan,  their  neighbour  !  Majestic  in  its  blue  and 
gold  unity,  this  fills  shelf  after  shelf  and  compartment 
after  compartment,  its  right  mounting  up  into  heaven 
among  the  white  folios  of  the  'Acta  Sanctorum,'  its  left 
plunging  down  into  hell  among  the  yellow  octavos  of  the 
'Law  Digest.'  Everything  is  there,  in  that  immense 
'PatrologiiE  Cursus  Completus,'  in  that  'Encyclopedia 
Thdologique,'  that  '  Nouvelle  Encyclopedie  Theologique,' 
that  '  Troisi^me  Encyclopedie  Theologique  ; '  religion, 
philosophy,  history,  biography,  arts,  sciences,  bibliography, 
gossip.  The  work  embraces  the  whole  range  of  human 
interests  ;  like  one  of  the  great  Middle-Age  cathedrals, 
it  is  in  itself  a  study  for  a  life.  Like  the  net  in  Scripture, 
it  drags  everything  to  land,  bad  and  good,  lay  and  eccle- 
siastical, sacred  and  profane,  so  that  it  be  but  matter  of 
human  concern.  Wide-embracing  as  the  power  whose 
product  it  is  !  a  power,  for  history  at  any  rate,  eminently 
tJie  Church  ;  not,  perhaps,  the  Church  of  the  future,  but 
indisputably  the  Church  of  the  past,  and,  in  the  past,  the 
Church  of  The  multitude. 

This  is  why  the  man  of  imagination, — nay,  and  the 
philosopher  too,  in  spite  of  her  propensity  to  burn  him, — 
will  always  have  a  weakness  for  the  Catholic  Church  ; 
because  of  the  rich  treasures  of  human  life  which  have 
been   stored  within  her  pale.      The  mention  of  other 


184  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

religious  bodies,  or  of  their  leaders,  at  once  calls  up  in 
our  mind  the  thought  of  men  of  a  definite  type  as  their 
adherents  ;  the  mention  of  Catholicism  suggests  no  such 
special  following.  Anglicanism  suggests  the  English  epis- 
copate; Calvin's  name  suggests  Dr.  Candlish;  Chalmers's, 
the  Duke  of  Argyll  ;  Channing's,  Boston  society  ;  but 
Catholicism  suggests, — what  shall  I  say  ? — all  the  pell- 
mell  of  the  men  and  women  of  Shakspeare's  plays.  This 
abundance  the  Abb^  Migne's  collection  faithfully  reflects. 
— Essays  in  Criticism. 

CATHOLICISM   TO   CATHOLICS. 

Catholicism  is  that  form  of  Christianity  which  is  fullest 
of  human  accretions  and  superstitions,  because  it  is  the 
oldest,  the  largest,  the  most  popular.  It  is  the  religion 
which  has  most  reached  the  people.  It  has  been  the 
great  popular  religion  of  Christendom,  with  all  the  accre- 
tions and  superstitions  inseparable  from  such  a  character. 
The  bulk  of  its  superstitions  come  from  its  having  really 
plunged  so  far  down  into  the  multitude,  and  spread  so 
wide  among  them.  If  this  is  a  cause  of  error,  it  is  also  a 
cause  of  attachment.  Who  has  seen  the  poor  in  other 
churches  as  they  are  seen  in  Catholic  churches  ?  Catho- 
licism, besides,  enveloped  human  life  ;  and  Catholics  in 
general  feel  themselves  to  have  drawn  not  only  their 
religion  from  the  Church,  they  feel  themselves  to  have 
drawn  from  her,  too,  their  art  and  poetry  and  culture. 


Catholicism  to  Catholics.  185 

Her  hierarchy,  again,  originally  stamped  in  their  imagi- 
nations with  the  character  of  a  beneficent  and  orderly 
authority  springing  up  amidst  anarchy,  appeared  next  as 
offering  a  career  where  birth  was  disregarded  and  merit 
regarded,  and  the  things  of  the  mind  and  the  soul  were 
honoured,  in  the  midst  of  the  iron  feudal  age  which  wor- 
shipped solely  birth  and  force.  So  thus  Catholicism 
acquired  on  the- imagination  a  second  hold.  And  if  there 
is  a  thing  specially  alien  to  religion,  it  is  divisions ;  if  there 
is  a  thing  specially  native  to  religion,  it  is  peace  and  union. 
Hence  the  original  attraction  towards  unity  in  Rome,  and 
hence  the  great  charm  and  power  for  men's  minds  of  that 
unity  when  once  attained.  All  these  spells  for  the  heart 
and  imagination  has  Catholicism  to  Catholics,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  spell  for  the  conscience  of  a  divine  cure  for 
vice  and  misery.  And  whoever  treats  Catholicism  as  a 
nuisance,  to  be  helped  to  die  out  as  soon  as  possible, 
has  the  heart,  the  imagination,  and  the  conscience  of 
Catholics  in  just  revolt  against  him. — Mixed  Essays. 

TRUE  STRENGTH  OF  CATHOLICISM. 

When  Ultramontanism,  sacerdotalism,  and  superstition 
are  gone,  Catholicism  is  not,  as  some  may  suppose,  gone 
too.  Neither  is  it  left  with  nothing  further  but  what  it 
possesses  in  common  with  all  the  forms  of  Christianity, 
— the  curative  power  of  the  word,  character,  and  influ- 
ence of  Jesus.     It  is,  indeed,  left  with  this,  which  is  the 


1 86  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


root  of  the  matter,  but  it  is  left  with  a  mighty  power 
besides.     It  is  left  with  the  beauty,   the  richness,   the 
poetry,  the  infinite  charm  for  the  imagination,  of  its  own 
age-long  growth,  a  growth  such  as  we  have  described, — 
unconscious,  popular,  profoundly  rooted,  all-enveloping. 
It  is  the  sure  sign  of  a  shallow  mind,  to  suppose  that 
the  strength  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  really  in  its  tone 
of  absolute  certainty  concerning  its  dogmas,  in  its  airs  of 
omniscience.     On  the  contrary,  as  experience  widens,  as 
the  scientific  and  dogmatic  pretensions  of  the  Church 
become  more  manifestly  illusory,   its  tone  of  certitude 
respecting   them,   so   unguarded,   so  reiterated,   and   so 
grossly  calculated  for  immediate  and  vulgar  effect,  will 
be  an  embarrassment  to  it.     The  gain  to-day,  the  effect 
upon  a  certain  class  of  minds,  will  be  found  to  be  more 
than  counterbalanced  by  the  embarrassment  to-morrow. 
Its  dogma  and  its  confident  assertion  of  its  dogma  are 
no  more  a  real  source  of  strength  and  permanence  to  the 
Catholic   Church,   than   its   Ultramontanism.       Its   real 
superiority  is  in  its  charm  for  the  imagination, — its  poetry. 
I  persist  in  thinking  that  CathoUcism  has,  from  this  superi- 
ority, a  great  future  before  it ;  that  it  will  endure  while 
all  the  Protestant  sects  (amongst  which  I  do  not  include 
the  Church  of  England)  dissolve  and  perish.     I  persist  in 
thinking  that  the  prevailing  form  for  the  Christianity  of 
the  future  will  be  the  form  of  Catholicism ; — but  a  Catholi- 
cism purged,  opening  itself  to  the  light  and  air,  having  the 


TrtLe  Strength  of  CatJiolicism.         187 

consciousness  of  its  own  poetry,  freed  from  its  sacerdotal 
despotism  and  freed  from  its  pseudo-scientific  apparatus 
of  superannuated  dogma.  Its  forms  will  be  retained,  as 
symbolising  with  the  force  and  charm  of  poetry  a  few 
cardinal  facts  and  ideas,  simple  indeed,  but  indispensable 
and  inexhaustible,  and  on  which  our  race  could  lay  hold 
only  by  materialising  them. — Mixed  Essays. 

THE  XEED  FOR  BEAUTY. 

The  need  for  beauty  is  a  real  and  now  rapidly  growing 
need  in  man  ;  Puritanism,  cannot  satisfy  it,  Catholicism 
and  the  English  Church  can.  The  needs  of  intellect  and 
knowledge  in  him,  indeed,  neither  Puritanism,  nor  Catho- 
licism, nor  the  English  Church,  can  at  present  satisfy. 
Those  needs  have  to  seek  satisfaction  nowadays  elsewhere, 
— through  the  modern  spirit,  science,  literature.  But,  as 
one  drops  the  false  science  of  the  Churches,  one  perceives 
that  what  they  had  to  deal  with  was  so  simple  that  it  did 
not  require  science.  Their  beauty  remains,  investing 
certain  elementary  truths  of  inestimable  depth  and  value, 
yet  of  extreme  simplicity.  But  the  Puritan  Churches  have 
no  beauty.  This  makes  the  difficulty  of  maintaining  the 
Estabhshed  Church  of  Scotland.  Once  drop  the  false 
science  on  which  successive  generations  of  Scotchmen 
have  so  vainly  valued  themselves,  once  convince  oneself 
that  the  Westminster  Confession,  whatever  Principal 
Tulloch  may  think,  is  a  document  absolutely  antiquated, 


1 88  Philosophy  and  Religion, 

sterile,  and  worthless,  and  what  remains  to  the  Church  of 
Scotland  ?  Besides  the  simple  elementary  truths  present 
in  all  forms  of  Christianity,  there  remains  to  the  Church 
of  Scotland  merely  that  which  remains  to  the  Free  Church, 
to  the  United  Presbyterians,  to  Puritanism  in  general, — a 
religious  service  which  is  perhaps  the  most  dismal  per- 
formance ever  invented  by  man.  It  is  here  that  Catho- 
licism and  the  Church  of  England  have  such  a  real 
superiority  ;  and  nothing  can  destroy  it,  and  the  present 
march  of  things  is  even  favourable  to  it.  Let  Liberals 
do  their  best  to  open  Catholicism  and  the  Church  of 
England  to  all  the  enlarging  influences  of  the  time,  to 
make  tyranny  and  vexatiousness  on  the  part  of  their 
clergy  impossible  ;  but  do  not  let  them  think  they  are  to 
be  destroyed,  nor  treat  them  as  their  natural  enemies. — 
Mixed  Essays. 

MILTON  AND  ELIZA    COOK» 

Lord  Granville  is  for  admitting,  in  a  public  rite,  the  ser- 
vices of  Dissent  on  the  same  footing  as  the  services  of  the 
Church  of  England.  But  let  him  accustom  himself  to 
attend  both,  and  he  will  perceive  what  the  difference  be- 
tween the  services  is.  The  difference  is  really  very  much 
the  difference  between  a  reading  from  Milton  and  a 
reading  from  Eliza  Cook, — a  poetess,  I  hasten  to  add,  of 
wide  popularity,  full  of  excellent  sentiments,  of  appeals  to 
the  love  of  liberty,  country,  home.     And  for  a  long  while 


MiUon  and  Eliza  Cook.  189 

the  English  Church,  with  the  State  to  back  her,  com- 
mitted the  fatal  mistake  of  trying  to  compel  everybody 
to  forsake  the  reading  of  Eliza  Cook  and  come  to  the 
reading  of  Milton  ;  nay,  to  declare  that  they  utterly  ab- 
jured Eliza  Cook,  and  that  they  preferred  Milton.  And 
sometimes,  when  it  would  have  suited  a  man  to  come  to 
the  reading  of  Milton,  they  would  not  let  him,  if  he  and 
his  family  had  ever  preferred  Eliza  Cook.  This  was  the 
time  of  the  strong  and  fruitful  alliance  of  the  Whigs  with 
Dissent.  It  may  be  said  to  have  closed  with  the  death 
of  a  man  whom  we  all  admired.  Lord  Russell.  He 
established  the  right  of  the  Dissenters  to  be  not  cross- 
questioned  and  persecuted  about  the  preferability  of  Mil- 
ton to  Eliza  Cook  ;  they  were  to  be  free  to  prefer  which 
they  pleased.  Yet  Milton  remains  Milton,  and  Eliza 
Cook  remains  Eliza  Cook.  And  a  public  rite,  with  a 
reading  of  Milton  attached  to  it,  is  another  thing  from  a 
public  rite  with  a  reading  from  Eliza  Cook.  The  general 
sentiment  has  gone  heartily  with  Lord  Russell  in  leaving 
the  Dissenters  perfectly  free  to  prefer  and  use  Eliza  Cook 
as  much  as  they  please  ;  but  is  it  certain  that  it  will  be 
found  equally  to  go  with  Lord  Granville  in  letting  them 
import  her  into  a  public  rite  ? — Mixed  Essays. 

RATIONALE   OF  PUBLIC  CEREMONIAL. 

What  is  the  intention  of  all  forms  of  public  ceremonial 
and  ministration  ?     It  is,  that  what  is  done  ard  said  in  a 


1 90  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

public  place,  and  bears  with  it  a  public  character,  should 
be  done  and  said  worthily.  The  public  is  responsible  for 
it.  The  public  gets  credit  and  advantage  from  it  if  it  is 
done  worthily,  is  compromised  and  harmed  by  it  if  it  is 
done  unworthily.  The  mode,  therefore,  of  performing 
public  functions  in  places  invested  with  a  public  character 
is  not  left  to  the  will  and  pleasure  of  chance  individuals. 
It  is  expressly  designed  to  rise  above  the  level  which 
would  be  thence  given.  If  there  is  a  sort  of  ignobleness 
and  vulgarity  {was  uns  alle  bdndigt,  das  Gemeine)  which 
comes  out  in  the  crude  performance  of  the  mass  of  man- 
kind left  to  themselves,  public  forms,  in  a  higher  strain 
and  of  recognised  worth,  are  designed  to  take  the  place 
of  such  crude  performance.  They  are  a  kind  of  schooling, 
which  may  educate  gradually  such  performance  into 
something  better,  and  meanwhile  may  prevent  it  from 
standing  forth,  to  its  own  discredit  and  to  that  of  all  of 
us,  as  public  and  representative.  This,  I  say,  is  evidently 
the  design  of  all  forms  for  public  use  on  serious  and 
solemn  occasions.  No  one  will  say  that  the  common 
Englishman  glides  off-hand  and  by  nature  into  a  strain 
pure,  noble,  and  elevated.  On  the  contrary,  he  falls  with 
great  ease  into  vulgarity.  But  no  people  has  shown  m.ore 
attachment  than  the  English  to  old  and  dignified  forms 
calculated  to  save  us  from  it. 

Such  is  the  origin  and  such  is  the  defence  of  the  use 
of  a  set  form  of  burial-service  in  our  public  churchyards, 
— Last  Essays. 


Burials  Bill.  191 


BURIALS  BILL. 

The  hearty  believers  in  a  man's  natural  right  to  have  in  the 
parish  churchyard  a  burial  to  his  own  liking,  do  not  con- 
ceal that  they  believe  also  in  a  man's  natural  right  to  have 
in  the  parish  church  a  worship  to  his  own  liking.  '  Let 
me  be  honest  about  it,'  said  Sir  Wilfrid  Lawson  at  Car- 
lisle ;  '  if  you  let  the  Nonconformist  into  the  churchyard, 
that  is  only  a  step  towards  letting  him  into  the  church.' 
The  two  rights  do,  in  fact,  stand  on  precisely  the  same 
footing.  If  the  naturalness  of  a  man's  wishing  to  do  a  thing 
creates  for  him  a  right  to  do  it,  then  a  Dissenter  can  urge 
his  right  to  have  his  own  minister  say  his  say  over  him  in 
the  parish  churchyard.  Equally  can  he  urge  his  right  to 
have  his  own  minister  say  his  say  to  him  in  the  parish 
church. 

What  bars  the  right  is  in  both  cases  just  the  same 
thing  :  the  higher  right  of  the  community.  For  the  credit 
and  welfare  of  the  community,  public  forms  are  appointed 
to.be  observed  in  public  places.  The  will  and  pleasure 
of  individuals  is  not  to  have  sway  there.  This  is  what 
bars  the  Nonconformist's  right  to  have  in  his  life-time 
what  minister  and  service  he  likes  in  the  parish  church. 
It  is  also  what  bars  his  right  to  have  after  his  death  what 
minister  and  service  he  likes  in  the  parish  churchyard. — 
Last  Essays. 


192  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

BURIALS  RUBRIC. 

In  the  denial  of  the  burial-office  to  '  any  that  die  unbap- 
tised  '  lies  the  true  source  of  grievance. 

The  office  is  meant  for  Christians,  and  this  was  what 
the  rubric  intended,  no  doubt,  to  mark;  baptism  being 
taken  as  the  stamp  common  to  all  Christians.  But  a  large 
and  well-known  sect  of  Christians,  the  Baptists,  defer 
baptism  until  the  recipient  is  of  adult  age,  and  their  chil- 
dren, therefore,  if  they  die,  die  unbaptised.  To  inquire 
whether  a  child  presented  for  burial  is  a  Baptist's  child 
or  not,  is  an  inquiry  which  no  judicious  and  humane 
clergyman  would  make.  The  office  was  meant  for 
Christians,  and  Baptists  are  Christians,  for  surely  they  do 
not  cease  to  be  so  because  of  their  tenet  of  adult  baptism. 
Adult  baptism  was  undoubtedly  the  primitive  usage, 
although  the  change  of  usage  adopted  by  the  Church  was 
natural  and  legitimate,  and  the  sticklers  (as  may  so  often 
be  said  of  the  sticklers  in  these  questions)  would  have 
been  wiser  had  they  acquiesced  in  it.  But  the  rubric 
dresses  the  clergyman  in  an  authority  for  investigating 
and  excluding,  which  enables  a  violent  and  unwise  man 
to  play  tricks  that  might,  indeed,  make  the  angels  weep. 
Where  he  has  the  law  on  his  side,  he  can  refuse  the  burial- 
service  outright  to  innocent  infants  and  children  t'.e 
most  piously  brought  up  ;  he  can,  under  pretence  of 
doubt  and  inquiry,  adjourn,  and  often  withhold  it,  where 
he  has  not. 


Burials  Rubric.  193 


Such  a  man  does  harm  to  the  Church  ;  but  it  is  not 
hkely  that  he  .will  have  the  sense  to  see  this,  when  he  has 
not  eyes  to  see  what  harm  he  does  to  himself.  There  may 
not  be  many  of  such  men,  but  a  few  make  a  great  noise, 
and  do  a  great  deal  of  mischief  There  is  no  stronger 
proof  of  the  immense  power  of  inspiring  attachment 
which  the  Church  of  England  possesses,  and  of  the 
loveable  and  admirable  qualities  shown  by  many  of  the 
clergy,  than  that  the  Church  should  still  have  so  strong  a 
hold  upon  the  affections  of  the  country,  in  spite  of  such 
mischief-makers.  If  the  Church  ever  loses  it  and  is 
broken  up,  it  will  be  by  their  fault.  It  was  the  view  of 
this  sort  of  people  with  their  want  of  temper  and  want 
of  judgment,  the  view  of  their  mischievous  action, 
exerting  itself  with  all  the  pugnacity  and  tenacity  of  the 
British  character,  and  of  their  fatal  prominence,  which 
moved  Clarendon,  a  sincere  friend  of  the  Church  of 
England,  to  that  terrible  sentence  of  his  :  '  Clergymen, 
who  understand  the  least,  and  take  the  worst  measure  of 
human  affairs,  of  all  mankind  that  can  write  and  read  ! ' 

The  truly  desirable,  the  indispensable  change  in  the 
regulation  of  burials,  is  to  remove  the  power  of  doing 
mischief  which  such  persons  now  enjoy.  And  the  best 
way  to  remove  it,  is  to  strike  out  the  first  rubric  to  the 
burial-service  altogether. — Last  Essays. 


1 9  4  PJl  ilosophy  and  Religion . 

NATIONAL   CHURCHES. 

If  there  were  no  national  and  historic  form  of  church-order 
in  possession  of  the  ground,  a  genuine  Christian  would 
regret  having  to  spend  time  and  thought  in  shaping  one,  in 
having  so  to  encumber  himself  with  serving,  to  busy  him- 
self so  much  about  a  frame  for  his  religious  life  as  well  as 
about  the  contents  of  the  frame.  After  all,  a  man  has 
only  a  certain  sum  of  force  to  spend  ;  and  if  he  takes  a 
quantity  of  it  for  outward  things,  he  has  so  much  the 
less  left  for  inward  things.  It  is  hardly  to  be  believed, 
how  much  larger  a  space  the  mere  affairs  of  the  denomi- 
nation fill  in  the  time  and  thoughts  of  a  Dissenter,  than 
in  the  time  and  thoughts  of  a  Churchman.  Now  all 
machinery-work  of  this  kind  is,  to  a  man  filled  with  a 
real  love  of  the  essence  of  Christianity,  something  of  a 
hindrance  to  him  in  what  he  most  wants  to  be  at, 
something  of  a  concession  to  his  ordinary  self.  When 
an  established  and  historic  form  exists,  such  a  man 
should  be,  therefore,  disposed  to  use  it  and  comply  with 
it.  But, — as  if  it  were  not  satisfied  with  proving  its  un- 
profitableness by  corroding  us  with  jealousy  and  so 
robbing  us  of  the  mildness  and  sweet  reasonableness  of 
Christ  which  is  our  mainstay, — political  Dissent,  Dissent 
for  the  sake  of  church-policy  and  church-management, 
proves  it,  too,  by  stimulating  our  ordinary  self  through 
over-care  for  what  flatters  this.     In  fact,  what  is  it  that 


National  Churches.  195 


the  everyday,  middle-class  Philistine, — not  the  rare  flower 
of  the  Dissenters  but  the  common  staple, — finds  so  attrac- 
tive in  Dissent  ?  Is  it  not,  as  to  discipline,  that  his  self- 
importance  is  fomented  by  the  fuss,  bustle,  and  partisan- 
ship of  a  private  sect,  instead  of  being  lost  in  the  great- 
ness of  a  public  body  ?  As  to  worship,  is  it  not  that  his 
taste  is  pleased  by  usages  and  words  that  come  down 
to  /«>//,  instead  of  drawing  him  up  to  ihcm  ;  by  services 
which  reflect,  instead  of  the  culture  of  great  men  of 
religious  genius,  the  crude  culture  of  himself  and  his 
fellows  ?  And  as  to  doctpne,  is  it  not  that  his  mind  is 
pleased  at  hearing  no  opinion  but  its  own,  by  having  all 
disputed  points  taken  for  granted  in  its  own  favour,  by 
being  urged  to  no  return  upon  itself,  no  development  ? 
And  what  is  all  this  but  the  very  feeding  and  stimulating 
of  our  ordinary  self,  instead  of  the  annulling  of  it  ? 
No  doubt  it  is  natural  ;  to  indulge  our  ordinary  self  is 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  But  Christianity 
is  not  natural ;  and  if  the  flower  of  Christianity  be 
the  grace  and  peace  which  comes  of  annulling  our 
ordinary  self,  then  to  this  flower  it  is  fatal. — St.  Paul 
and  Protestantism. 

CHURCH  AND  SECT. 

One  may  say  that  to  be  reared  a  member  of  a  national 
Church  is  in  itself  a  lesson  of  religious  moderation,  and 

c  2 


1 96  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

a.  help  towards  culture  and  harmonious  perfection. 
Instead  of  battling  for  his  own  private  forms  for  express- 
ing the  inexpressible  and  defining  the  undefinable,  a  man 
takes  those  which  have  commended  themselves  most 
to  the  religious  life  of  his  nation  ;  and  while  he  may  be 
sure  that  within  those  forms  the  religious  side  of 
his  own  nature  may  find  its  satisfaction,  he  has  leisure 
and  composure  to  satisfy  other  sides  of  his  nature  as 
well. 

But  with  the  member  of  a  Nonconforming  or  self- 
made  religious  community,  how  different  !  The  sectary's 
eigene  grosse  Erfifidungen^  as  Goethe  calls  them, — the 
precious  discoveries  of  himself  and  his  friends  for  ex- 
pressing the  inexpressible  and  defining  the  undefinable 
in  peculiar  forms  of  their  own, — cannot  but,  as  he  has 
voluntarily  chosen  them  and  is  personally  responsible  for 
them,  fill  his  whole  mind.  He  is  zealous  to  do  battle  for 
them  and  affirm  them  ;  for  in  affirming  them  he  affirms 
himself,  and  that  is  what  we  all  like.  Other  sides  of  his 
being  are  thus  neglected,  because  the  religious  side, 
always  tending  in  every  serious  man  to  predominance 
over  our  other  spiritual  sides,  is  in  him  made  quite 
absorbing  and  tyrannous  by  the  condition  of  self-assertion 
and  challenge  which  he  has  chosen  for  himself  And 
just  what  is  not  essential  in  religion  he  comes  to  mistake 
for  essential,  and  a  thousand  times  the  more  readily 
because   he    has   chosen   it   of  himself ;    and  religious 


C/mrch  and  Sect.  197 

activity  he  fancies  to  consist  in  battling  for  it. — Culture 
and  Anarchy. 

PUGILISTIC  DISSENT. 

The  more  the  sense  of  religion  grows,  and  of  religion  in 
a  large  way,— the  sense  of  the  beauty  and  rest  of  religion, 
the  sense  that  its  charm  lies  in  its  grace  and  peace, — the 
more  will  the  present  attitude,  objections,  and  complaints 
of  the  Dissenters  indispose  men's  minds  to  them.  They 
will,  I  firmly  believe,  lose  ground  ;  they  will  not  keep 
hold  of  the  new  generations.  In  most  of  the  mature 
Dissenters  the  spirit  of  scruple,  objection-taking,  and 
division,  is,  I  fear,  so  ingrained,  that  in  any  proffered 
terms  of  union  they  are  more  likely  to  seize  occasion  for 
fresh  cavil  than  occasion  for  peace.  But  the  new  genera- 
tions will  be  otherwise  minded.  As  to  the  Church's  want 
of  grace  and  peace  in  disputing  the  ground'with  Dissent, 
the  justice  of  what  Barrow  says  will  be  more  and  more 
felt : — '  He  that  being  assaulted  is  constrained  to  stand 
on  his  defence,  may  not  be  said  to  be  in  peace  ;  yet  his 
not  being  so  (involuntarily)  is  not  to  be  imputed  to  him.' 
But  the  Dissenters  have  not  this,  the  Church's  excuse,  for 
being  men  of  war  in  a  sphere  of  grace  and  peace.  And 
they  turn  themselves  into  men  of  war  more  and  more. 

Look  at  one  of  the  ablest  of  them,  who  is  much  before 
the  public,  and  whose  abilities  I  unfeignedly  admire  : 
Mr.  Dale.     Mr.  Dale  is  really  a  pugilist,  a  brilliant  pugi- 


198  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

list.  He  has  his  arena  down  at  Birmingham,  where  he 
does  his  practice  with  Mr.  Chamberlain,  and  Mr.  Jesse 
CoUings,  and  the  rest  of  his  band  ;  and  then  from  time  to 
time  he  comes  up  to  the  metropolis,  to  London,  and  gives 
a  public  exhibition  here  of  his  skill.  And  a  very  power- 
ful performance  it  often  is.  And  the  '  Times  '  observes, 
that  the  chief  Dissenting  ministers  are  becoming  quite 
the  intellectual  equals  of  the  ablest  of  the  clergy.  Very 
likely  ;  this  sort  of  practice  is  just  the  right  thing  for 
bracing  a  man's  intellectual  muscles.  I  have  no  fears 
concerning  Mr.  Dale's  intellectual  muscles  ;  what  I  am 
a  little  uneasy  about  is  his  religious  temper.  The  essence 
of  religion  is  grace  and  peace.  And  though,  no  doubt, 
Mr.  Dale  cultivates  grace  and  peace  at  other  times,  when 
he  is  not  busy  with  his  anti-Church  practice,  yet  his  cul- 
tivation of  grace  and  peace  can  be  none  the  better,  and 
must  naturally  be  something  the  worse,  for  the  time  and 
energy  given  to  his  pugilistic  interludes.  And  the  more 
that  mankind,  instead  of  placing  their  religion  in  all  manner 
of  things  where  it  is  not,  come  to  place  it  in  sheer  good- 
ness, and  in  grace  and  peace, — and  this  is  the  tendency, 
I  think,  with  the  English  people,— the  less  favourable 
will  public  opinion  be  to  the  proceedings  of  the  political 
Dissenters,  and  the  less  has  the  Church  to  fear  from  their 
pugnacious  self-assertion. — Last  Essays. 


Dissidence  of  Dissent.  199 

DISSIDENCE   OF  DISSENT. 

Whether  the  Dissenters  will  believe  it  or  not,  my  wish 
to  reconcile  them  with  the  Church  is  from  no  desire  to 
give  their  adversaries  a  victory  and  them  a  defeat,  but 
from  the  conviction  that  they  are  on  a  false  line  ;  from 
sorrow  at  seeing  their  fine  qualities  and  energies  thrown 
away,  from  hope  of  signal  good  to  this  whole  nation  if 
they  can  be  turned  to  better  account.  '  The  dissidence 
of  Dissent,  and  the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant 
religion,'  have  some  of  mankind's  deepest  and  truest 
instincts  against  them,  and  cannot  finally  prevail.  If 
they  prevail  for  a  time,  that  is  only  a  temporary  stage 
in  man's  history  ;  they  will  fail  in  the  end,  and  will  have 
to  confess  it. 

It  is  said,  and  on  what  seems  good  authority,  that 
already  in  America,  that  Paradise  of  the  sects,  there  are 
signs  of  reaction,  and  that  the  multitude  of  sects  there 
begin  to  tend  to  agglomerate  themselves  into  two  or  three 
great  bodies.  It  is  said,  too,  that  whereas  the  Church  of 
Rome,  in  the  first  year  of  the  present  century,  had  but 
one  in  two-hundred  of  the  population  of  the  United 
States,  it  has  now  one  in  six  or  seven.  This  at  any  rate 
is  certain,  that  the  great  and  sure  gainer  by  the  dissidence 
of  Dissent  and  the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion is  the  Church  of  Rome.  Unity  and  continuity  in 
public  religious  worship  are  a  need  of  human  nature,  an 


200  PJiilosophy  and  Religion. 

eternal  aspiration  of  Christendom  ;  but  unity  and  con- 
tinuity in  religious  worship  joined  with  perfect  mental 
sanity  and  freedom.  A  Catholic  Church  transformed  is, 
I  believe,  the  Church  of  the  future.  But  what  the  Dis- 
senters, by  their  false  aims  and  misused  powers,  at  present 
effect,  is  to  extend  and  prolong  the  reign  of  a  Catholic 
Church  z/«transformed,  with  all  its  conflicts,  impossi- 
bilities, miseries.  That,  however,  is  what  the  Dissenters, 
in  their  present  state,  cannot  and  will  not  see.  For  the 
growth  of  insight  to  recognise  it,  one  must  rely,  both 
among  the  Dissenters  themselves  and  in  the  nation  which 
has  to  judge  their  aims  and  proceedings,  on  the  help  of 
time  and  progress  ; — time  and  progress,  in  alliance  with 
'  the  ancient  and  inbred  integrity,  piety,  good  nature,  and 
good  humour  of  the  English  people.' — Last  Essays. 

COMPREHENSION. 

So  far  am  I  from  being  moved,  in  anything  that  I  do 
or  say  in  this  matter,  by  ill-will  to  Puritanism  and  the 
Puritans,  that  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  just  because  of  my 
hearty  respect  for  them,  and  from  my  strong  sense  of 
their  value,  that  I  speak  as  I  do.  Certainly  I  con- 
sider them  to  be  in  the  main,  at  present,  an  obstacle  to 
progress  and  to  true  civilisation.  But  this  is  because 
their  worth  is,  in  my  opinion,  such,  that  not  only  must 
one  for  their  own  sakes  wish  to  see  it  turned  to  more 
advantage,  but  others  from  whom  they  are  now  separated, 


Comprehension.  20 1 

would  greatly  gain  by  conjunction  with  them,  and  our 
whole  collective  force  of  growth  and  progress  be  thereby 
immeasurably  increased.  In  short,  my  own  feeling  when 
we  regard  them,  is  a  feeling,  not  of  ill-will,  but  of  regret 
at  waste  of  power  ;  my  one  desire  is  a  desire  of  compre- 
hension.—  St.  Faid  and  Protestantism. 

WHAT  IS   THE   CHURCH? 

A  MAN  who  has  published  a  good  deal  which  is  at  variance 
with  the  body  of  theological  doctrine  commonly  received 
in  the  Church  of  England,  and  commonly  preached  by 
its  ministers,  cannot  well,  it  may  be  thought,  stand  up  • 
before  the  clergy  as  a  friend  to  their  cause  and  to  that  of 
the  Church.  Professed  ardent  enemies  of  the  Church 
have  assured  me  that  I  am  really,  in  their  opinion,  one  of 
the  worst  enemies  that  the  Church  has, — a  much  worse 
enemy  than  themselves.  Perhaps  that  opinion  is  shared 
by  some  of  those  who  now  hear  me.  I  make  bold  to  say 
that  it  is  totally  erroneous.  It  is  founded  in  an  entire 
misconception  of  the  character  and  scope  of  what  I  have 
written  concerning  religion.  I  regard  the  Church  of 
England  as,  in  fact,  a  great  national  society  for  the  pro- 
motion of  what  is  commonly  called  goodness,  and  for  pro- 
moting it  through  the  most  effectual  means  possible,  the 
only  means  which  are  really  and  truly  effectual  for  the 
object  :  through  the  means  of  the  Christian  religion  and 
of  the  Bible.     This  plain  practical  object  is  undeniably 


202  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

the  object  of  the  Church  of  England  and  of  the  clergy. 
*  Our  province,' says  Butler,  'our  province  is  virtue  and 
religion,  life  and  manners,  the  science  of  improving  the 
temper  and  making  the  heart  better.  This  is  the  field 
assigned  us  to  cultivate  ;  how  much  it  has  lain  neglected 
is  indeed  astonishing.  He  who  should  find  out  one  rule 
to  assist  us  in  this  work  would  deserve  infinitely  better  of 
mankind  than  all  the  improvers  of  other  knowledge  put 
together.'  This  is  indeed  true  religion,  true  Christianity. 
And  therefore  the  object  of  the  Church,  which  is  in 
large  the  promotion  of  goodness,  and  the  business  of  the 
clergy,  which  is  to  teach  men  their  duty  and  to  assist 
them  in  the  discharge  of  it,  do  really  and  truly  interest 
me  more,  and  do  appear  in  my  eyes  as  things  more 
valuable  and  important,  than  the  object  and  business 
pursued  in  those  writings  of  mine  which  are  in  question, 
— writings  which  seek  to  put  a  new  construction  on  much 
in  the  Bible,  to  alter  the  current  criticism  of  it,  to  invali- 
date the  conclusions  of  theologians  from  it.  If  the  two 
are  to  conflict,  I  had  rather  that  it  should  be  the  object 
and  business  of  those  writings  which  should  have  to  give 
way.  Most  certainly  the  establishment  of  an  improved 
biblical  criticism,  or  the  demolition  of  the  systems  of 
theologians,  will  never  in  itself  avail  to  teach  men  their 
duty  or  to  assist  them  in  the  discharge  of  it.  Perhaps, 
even,  no  one  can  very  much  give  himself  to  such  objects 
without  running  some  risk  of  over-valuing  their  import- 


W/iai  is  the  C/mrck  f  203 

ance  and  of  being  diverted  by  them  from  practice. — Last 

Essays. 

THE   CHURCH  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

The  ideal  of  the  working  classes  is  a  future, — a  future 
on  earth,  not  up  in  the  sky, — which  shall  profoundly 
change  and  ameliorate  things  for  them  ;  an  immense 
social  progress,  nay,  a  social  transformation  ;  in  short,  as 
their  song  goes,  '  a  good  time  coming.'  And  the  Church 
is  supposed  to  be  an  appendage  to  the  Barbarians,  as  I 
have  somewhere,  in  joke,  called  it  ;  an  institution  de- 
voted above  all  to  the  landed  gentry,  but  also  to  the 
propertied  and  satisfied  classes  generally  ;  favouring  im- 
mobility, preaching  submission,  and  reserving  transforma- 
tion in  general  for  the  other  side  of  the  grave. 

Such  a  Church,  I  admit,  cannot  possibly  nowadays 
attach  the  working  classes,  or  be  viewed  with  anything 
but  disfavour  by  them.  But  certainly  the  superstitious 
worship  of  existing  social  facts,  a  devoted  obsequious- 
ness to  the  landed  and  propertied  and  satisfied  -classes, 
does  not  inhere  in  the  Christian  religion.  The  Church 
does  not  get  it  from  the  Bible.  Exception  is  taken  to  its 
being  said  that  there  is  communism  in  the  Bible,  because 
we  see  that  communists  are  fierce,  violent,  insurrectionary 
people,  with  temper  and  actions  abhorrent  to  the  spirit 
of  Christianity.  But  if  we  say,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the 
Bible   utterly  condemns  all  violence,  revolt,   fierceness. 


204  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


and  self-assertion,  then  we  may  safely  say,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  there  is  certainly  communism  in  the  Bible. 
The  truth  is,  the  Bible  enjoins  endless  self-sacrifice  all 
round  ;  and  to  any  one  who  has  grasped  this  idea,  the 
superstitious  worship  of  property,  the  reverent  devoted- 
ness  to  the  propertied  and  satisfied  classes,  is  impossible. 
And  the  Christian  Church  has,  I  boldly  say,  been  the 
fruitful  parent  of  men  who,  having  grasped  this  idea,  have 
been  exempt  from  this  superstition.  Institutions  are  to 
be  judged  by  their  great  men  ;  in  the  end,  they  take  their 
line  from  their  great  men.  The  Christian  Church,  and 
the  hne  which  is  natural  to  it  and  which  will  one  day 
prevail  in  it,  is  to  be  judged  from  the  saints  and  the  tone 
of  the  saints.  Now  really,  if  there  have  been  any  people 
in  the  world  free  from  illusions  about  the  divine  origin 
and  divine  sanctions  of  social  facts  just  as  they  stand, — 
open,  therefore,  to  the  popular  hopes  of  a  profound  reno- 
vation and  a  happier  future, — it  has  been  those  inspired 
idiots,  the  poets  and  the  saints.  Nobody  nowadays 
attends  much  to  what  the  poets  say,  so  I  leave  them  on 
one  side.  But  listen  to  a  saint  on  the  origin  of  property  ; 
listen  to  Pascal.  '  "  This  dog  belongs  to  ;«^,"  said  these 
poor  children  ;  "that  place  in  the  sun  hminef"  Behold 
the  beginning  and  the  image  of  all  usurpation  upon 
earth  ! ' — Last  Essays. 


The  Kingdom  of  God.  205 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 

It  is  really  well  to  consider,  how  entirely  our  religious 
teaching  and  preaching,  and  our  creeds,  and  what  passes 
with  us  for  '  the  gospel,'  turn  on  quite  other  matters  from 
the  fundamental  matter  of  the  primitive  gospel,  or  good 
news,  of  our  Saviour  himself  This  gospel  was  the  ideal 
of  popular  hope  and  longing,  an  immense  renovation  and 
transformation  of  things  :  the  kingdom  of  God.  'Jesus 
came  into  Galilee  proclaiming  the  good  news  of  God  and 
saying  :  The  time  is  fulfilled  and  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
at  hand  ;  repent  and  believe  the  good  news.'  Jesus 
went  about  the  cities  and  villages  '  proclaiming  the  good 
news  of  the  kingdom.'  The  multitudes  followed  him, 
and  he  '  took  them  and  talked  to  them  about  the  kingdom 
of  God.'  He  told  his  disciples  to  preach  this.  'Go 
thou,  and  spread  the  news  of  the  kingdom  of  God.'  'Into 
whatever  city  ye  enter,  say  to  them  :  The  kingdom  of 
God  has  come  nigh  unto  you.'  He  told  his  disciples  to 
pray  for  it.  '  Thy  kingdom  come  ! '  He  told  them  to 
seek  and  study  it  before  all  things.  '  Seek  first  God's 
righteousness  and  kingdom.' 

It  is  a  contracted  and  insufficient  conception  of 
the  gospel  which  takes  into  view  only  the  establishment 
of  righteousness,  and  does  not  also  take  into  view  the 
establishment  of  the  kingdom.  And  the  establishment 
of  the  kingdom  does  imply  an  immense  renovation  and 


2o6  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

transformation  of  our  actual  state  of  things  ;  that  is 
certain.  This  then,  which  is  the  ideal  of  the  popular 
classes,  of  the  multitude  everywhere,  is  a  legitimate  ideal. 
And  a  Church  of  England  devoted  to  the  service  and 
ideals  of  any  class  or  classes, — however  distinguished, 
wealthy,  or  powerful, — which  are  perfectly  satisfied  with 
things  as  they  are,  is  not  only  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
ideal  of  the  popular  classes  ;  it  is  also  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  gospel,  of  which  the  ideal  does,  in  the  main, 
coincide  with  theirs. — Last  Essays. 

TRUE  STRENGTH  OF  THE    CHURCH  OF 
ENGLAND. 

This  is  the  real  business  of  the  Church  :  to  make  progress 
in  grace  and  peace.  Force  the  Church  of  England  has 
certainly  some  ;  perhaps  a  good  deal.  But  its  true 
strength  is  in  relying,  not  on  its  powers  of  force,  but  on 
its  powers  of  attractiveness.  And  by  opening  itself  to 
the  glow  of  the  old  and  true  ideal  of  the  Christian 
Gospel,  by  fidelity  to  reason,  by  placing  the  stress  of  its 
religion  on  goodness,  by  cultivating  grace  and  peace,  it 
will  inspire  attachment,  to  which  the  attachment  which  it 
inspires  now,  deep  though  that  is,  will  be  as  nothing  ;  it 
may  last,  such  a  Church  may  last,  as  long  as  this  nation. 
■ — Last  Essays. 


Epieikeia.  207 

EPIEIKEIA. 

'I  BESEECH  you,'  Said  Paul,  '  by  the  mildness  and  gentleness 
of  Christ:'^  The  word  which  our  Bible  translates  by 
'  gentleness  '  means  more  properly  '  reasonableness  with 
sweetness,'  'sweet  reasonableness.'  'I  beseech  you  by 
the  mildness  and  sweet  reasonableness  of  Christ.'  This 
mildness  and  sweet  reasonableness  it  was,  which,  stamped 
with  the  individual  charm  they  had  in  Jesus  Christ,  came 
to  the  world  as  something  new,  won  its  heart  and  con- 
quered it.  Every  one  had  been  asserting  his  ordinary 
self  and  was  miserable  ;  to  forbear  to  assert  one's  ordinary 
self,  to  place  one's  happiness  in  mildness  and  sweet 
reasonableness,  was  a  revelation.  As  men  followed  this 
novel  route  to  happiness,  a  living  spring  opened  beside 
their  way,  the  spring  of  charity  ;  and  out  of  this  spring 
arose  those  two  heavenly  visitants,  Charis  and  Irene, 
grace  and  peace,  which  enraptured  the  poor  wayfarer,  and 
filled  him  with  a  joy  which  brought  all  the  world  after 
him.  And  still,  whenever  these  visitants  appear,  as  ap- 
pear for  a  witness  to  the  vitality  of  Christianity  they  daily 
do,  it  is  from  the  same  spring  that  they  arise;  and  this 
spring  is  opened  solely  by  the  mildness  and  sweet  reason- 
ableness which  forbears  to  assert  our  ordinary  self,  nay, 
which  even  takes  pleasure  in  effacing  it. — St.  Paul  and 
Protestantism. 

'  5ia  TT]S  Trp(xvTf\TO%  KoX  ivtitKeias  rod  Xpicrrov,      Cor.  II,  x,  I. 


2o8  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

THE  RELIGIOUS  SITUATION. 

When  we  consider  the  immense  change  which,  in  other 
matters  where  tradition  and  convention  were  the  obstacles 
to  all  change,  has  befallen  the  thought  of  this  country  since 
the  Continent  was  opened  at  the  end  of  the  great  war, 
we  cannot  doubt  that  in  religion,  too,  the  mere  barriers 
of  tradition  and  convention  will  finally  give  way,  that  a 
common  European  level  of  thought  will  establish  itself, 
and  will  spread  to  America  also.  Of  course  there  will  be 
backwaters,  more  or  less  strong,  of  superstition  and  ob- 
scurantism ;  but  I  speak  of  the  probable  development 
of  opinion  in  those  classes  which  are  to  be  called 
progressive  and  liberal.  Such  classes  are  undoubtedly 
the  multiplying  and  prevailing  body  both  here  and  in 
America.  And  I  say  that,  if  we  judge  the  future  from 
the  past,  these  classes,  in  any  matter  where  it  is  tradition 
and  convention  which  at  present  isolates  them  from  the 
common  liberal  opinion  of  Europe,  will,  with  time,  be 
drawn  almost  inevitably  into  that  opinion. 

The  partisans  of  traditional  religion  in  this  country 
do  not  know,  I  think,  how  decisively  the  whole  force  of 
progressive  and  liberal  opinion  on  the  Continent  has 
pronounced  against  the  Christian  religion.  They  do  not 
know  how  surely  the  whole  force  of  progressive  and  liberal 
opinion  in  this  country  tends  to  follow,  so  far  as  tradi- 
tional religion  is  concerned,  the  opinion  of  the  Continent. 


The  Religious  Situation.  209 

They  dream  of  patching  up  things  unmendable,  of  re- 
taining what  can  never  be  retained,  of  stopping  change 
at  a  point  where  it  can  never  be  stopped.  The  undoubted 
tendency  of  liberal  opinion  is  to  reject  the  whole  anthro- 
pomorphic and  miraculous  religion  of  tradition,  as  un- 
sound and  untenable.  On  the  Continent  such  opinion  has 
rejected  it  already.  One  cannot  blame  the  rejection. 
'Things  are  what  they  are,'  and  the  religion  of  tradition, 
Catholic  or  Protestant,  is  unsound  and  untenable.  A 
greater  force  of  tradition  in  favour  of  religion  is  all  which 
now  prevents  the  liberal  opinion  in  this  country  from 
following  Continental  opinion.  That  force  is  not  of  a 
nature  to  be  permanent,  and  it  will  not,  in  fact,  hold  out 
long.     But  a  very  grave  question  is  behind. 

Rejecting,  henceforth,  all  concern  with  the  obsolete 
religion  of  tradition,  the  liberalism  of  the  Continent 
rejects  also,  and  on  the  like  grounds,  all  concern  with 
the  Bible  and  Christianity.  To  claim  for  the  Bible  the 
direction,  in  any  way,  of  modern  life,  is,  we  hear,  as  if 
Plato  had  sought  to  found  his  ideal  republic  '  upon  a  text 
of  Hesiod.'  The  real  question  is,  whether  this  conclusion, 
too,  of  modern  liberalism  is  to  be  admitted,  like  the 
conclusion  that  traditionary  religion  is  unsound  and  ob- 
solete. And  it  does  not  find  many  gainsayers.  Obscur- 
antists are  glad  to  see  the  question  placed  on  this  footing  : 
that  the  cause  of  traditionary  religion,  and  the  cause  of 
Christianity  in  general,  must  stand  or  fall  together.     For 


2 1  o  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

they  see  but  very  little  way  into  the  future  ;  and  in  the 
immediate  present  this  way  of  putting  the  question  tells, 
as  they  clearly  perceive,  in  their  favour.  In  the  imme- 
diate present  many  will  be  tempted  to  cling  to  the  tra- 
ditionary religion  with  their  eyes  shut,  rather  than  accept 
the  extinction  of  Christianity.  Other  friends  of  religion 
are  busy  with  fantastic  projects,  which  can  never  come 
to  anything,  but  which  prevent  their  seeing  the  real 
character  of  the  situation.  So  the  thesis  of  modern 
liberals  on  the  Continent,  that  Christianity  in  general 
stands  on  the  same  footing  as  traditionary  religion  and 
must  share  its  fate,  meets  with  little  direct  discussion  or 
opposition.  And  liberal  opinion  everywhere  will  at  last 
grow  accustomed  to  finding  that  thesis  put  forward  as 
certain,  will  become  famiUarised  with  it,  will  suppose  that 
no  one  disputes  it.  This  in  itself  will  tend  to  withhold 
men  from  any  serious  return  upon  their  own  minds 
in  the  matter.  Meanwhile  the  day  will  most  certainly 
arrive,  when  the  great  body  of  liberal  opinion  in  this 
country  will  adhere  to  the  first  half  of  the  doctrine  of 
Continental  liberals ; — will  admit  that  traditionary  religion 
is  utterly  untenable.  And  the  danger  is,  that  from  the 
habits  of  their  minds,  and  from  seeing  the  thing  treated 
as  certain,  and  from  hearing  nothing  urged  against  it,  our 
liberals  may  admit  as  indisputable  the  second  half  of  the 
doctrine  too  :  that  Christianity,  also,  is  untenable. 

And  therefore  is  it  so  all-important  to  insist  on  what 


Relio;ious  Situation.  2 1 1 


I  call  the  ftatiiral  triith  of  Christianity,  and  to  bring  this 
out  all  we  can. — Last  Essays. 

THE  DISSENTERS  AND    THE   CRISIS. 

Dissent,  as  a  religious  movement  of  our  day,  would  be 
almost  droll,  if  it  were  not,  from  the  tempers  and  actions 
it  excites,  so  extremely  irreligious.  But  what  is  to  be 
said  for  men,  aspiring  to  deal  with  the  cause  of  religion, 
who  either  cannot  see  that  what  the  people  now  require 
is  a  religion  of  the  Bible  quite  different  from  that  which 
any  of  the  churches  or  sects  supply  ;  or  who,  seeing  this, 
spend  their  energies  in  fiercely  battling  as  to  whether 
the  Church  should  be  a  national  institution  or  no  ?  The 
question,  at  the  present  juncture,  is  in  itself  so  absolutely 
unimportant  !  The  thing  is,  to  recast  religion.  If  this  is 
done,  the  new  religion  will  be  the  national  one  ;  if  it  is  not 
done,  the  separating  the  nation,  in  its  collective  and  corpo- 
rate character,  from  religion,  will  not  do  it.  It  is  as  if  men's 
minds  were  much  unsettled  about  mineralogy,  and  the 
teachers  of  it  were  at  variance,  and  no  teacher  was  con- 
vincing, and  many  people,  therefore,  were  disposed  to 
throw  the  study  of  mineralogy  overboard  altogether. 
What  would  naturally  be  the  first  business  for  every  friend 
of  the  study  ?  Surely,  to  establish  on  safe  grounds  the 
value  of  the  study,  and  to  put  its  claims  in  a  new  light 
where  they  could  no  longer  be  denied.  But  if  he  acted 
as  our  Dissenters  act  in  religion,  what  would  he  do  ? 

p  2 


2 1  2  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

Give  himself,  heart  and  soul,  to  a  furious  crusade  against 
keeping  the  Government  School  of  Mines. — Literature 


and  Dogma 


RITUALISM. 

This  is  the  real  .objection  both  to  the  Catholic  and  to 
the  Protestant  doctrine  as  a  basis  for  conduct  ; — not  that 
it  is  a  degrading  superstition,  but  that  it  is  not  sure  ;  that 
it  assumes  what  cannot  be  verified. 

For  a  long  time  this  objection  occurred  to  scarcely 
anybody.  And  there  are  still,  and  for  a  long  time  yet 
there  will  be,  many  to  whom  it  does  not  occur.  In  par- 
ticular, on  those  '  devout  women '  who  in  the  history  of 
religion  have  at  all  times  played  a  part  in  many  respects 
so  beautiful  but  in  some  respects  so  mischievous, — on 
them,  and  on  a  certain  number  of  men  like  them,  it 
has  and  can  as  yet  have,  so  far  as  one  can  see,  no  effect 
at  all.  Who  that  watches  the  energumens  during  the 
celebration  of  the  Communion  in  some  Ritualistic  church, 
their  gestures  and  behaviour,  the  floor  of  the  church 
strewn  with  what  seem  to  be  the  dying  and  the  dead, 
progress  to  the  altar  almost  barred  by  forms  suddenly 
dropping  as  if  they  were  shot  in  battle, — who  that  ob- 
serves this  delighted  adoption  of  vehement  rites,  till 
yesterday  unknown,  adopted  and  practised  now  with  all 
that  absence  of  tact,  measure,  and  c  rrect  perception  in 
things  of  form  and  manner,  all  that  slowness  to  see  when 


Rihtalis7n.  2 1 3 


they  are  making  themselves  ridiculous,  which  belongs  to 
the  people  of  our  English  race, — who,  I  say,  that  marks 
this  can  doubt,  that  for  a  not  small  portion  of  the  reli- 
gious community,  a  difficulty  to  the  intelligence  will  for  a 
long  time  yet  be  no  difficulty  at  all  ?  With  their  mental 
condition  and  habits,  given  a  story  to  which  their  reli- 
gious emotions  can  attach  themselves,  and  the  famous 
Credo  quia  ineptiim  will  hold  good  with  them  still.  To 
think  they  know  what  passed  in  the  Council  of  the 
Trinity  is  not  hard  to  them  ;  they  could  easily  think 
they  even  knew  what  were  the  hangings  of  the  Trinity's 
council-chamber. — Literature  and  Dogma. 

SIMPLETONS  AND  SAVAGES 

To  our  English  race,  with  its  insularity,  its  profound 
faith  in  action,  its  contempt  for  dreamers  and  failers, 
inadequate  ideals  in  life,  manners,  government,  thought, 
religion,  will  always  be  a  source  of  danger.  Energetic 
action  makes  up,  we  think,  for  imperfect  knowledge.  We 
think  that  all  is  well,  that  a  man  is  following  '  a  moral 
impulse,'  if  he  pursues  an  end  which  he  'deems  of  supreme 
importance.'  We  impose  neither  on  him  nor  on  ourselves 
the  duty  of  discerning  whether  he  is  right  in  deeming 
it  so. 

Hence  our  causes  are  often  as  small  as  our  noise 
about  them  is  great.  To  see  people  busy  themselves 
about  Ritualism,  that  question  of  not  the  most  strong- 


214  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

minded  portion  of  the  clergy  and  laity,  or  to  see  them 
busy  themselves  about  that  '  burning  question '  of  the 
fierce  and  acrimonious  political  Dissenters,  the  Burials 
Bill,  leading  up  to  the  other  '  burning  question  '  of  dises- 
tablishment,— to  see  people  so  eager  about  these  things, 
one  might  sometimes  fancy  that  the  whole  English  nation, 
as  in  Chillingworth's  time  it  was  divided  into  two  great 
hosts  of  Publicans  and  Sinners  on  the  one  side,  Scribes 
and  Pharisees  on  the  other,  so  in  ours  it  was  going  to 
divide  itself  into  two  vast  camps  of  Simpletons  here, 
under  the  command,  suppose,  of  Mr.  Beresford  Hope, 
and  of  Savages  there,  under  the  command  of  Mr.  Henry 
Richard.  And  it  is  so  notorious  that  great  movements 
are  always  led  by  aliens  to  the  sort  of  people  who  make 
the  mass  of  the  movement, — by  gifted  outsiders, — that  1 
shall  not,  I  hope,  be  suspected  of  implying  that  Mr. 
Beresford  Hope  is  a  simpleton  or  Mr.  Henry  Richard  a 
savage.  But  what  we  have  to  do  is  to  raise  and  multiply 
in  this  country  a  third  host,  with  the  conviction  that  the 
ideals  both  of  Simpletons  and  Savages  are  profoundly  in- 
adequate and  profoundly  unedifying,  and  with  the  resolve 
to  win  victory  for  a  better  ideal  than  that  of  either  of 
them. — Mixed  Essays. 

FALSE  HEBRAISERS. 

It   may   be   very   well   for   born    Hebraisers,    like    Mr. 
Spurgeon,  to  Hebraise ;    but   for  Liberal  statesmen   to 


False  Hebraisers.  2 1 5 

Hebraise  is  surely  unsafe,  and  to  see  poor  old  Liberal  hacks 
Hebraising,  whose  real  self  belongs  to  a  kind  of  negative 
Hellenism, — a  state  of  moral  indifferency  without  intel- 
lectual ardour, — is  even  painful. — Culture  and  Atiarchy. 

MESSRS.    MOODY  AND  SANKEY. 

I  HEARD  Mr.  Moody  preach  to  one  of  his  vast  audiences 
on  a  topic  eternally  attractive, — salvation  by  Jesus  Christ. 
Mr.  Moody's  account  of  that  salvation  was  exactly  the  old 
story,  to  which  I  have  often  adverted,  of  the  contract  in 
the  Council  of  the  Trinity.  Justice  puts  in  her  claim, 
said  Mr.  Moody,  for  the  punishment  of  guilty  mankind  ; 
God  admits  it.  Jesus  intercedes,  undertakes  to  bear  their 
punishment,  and  signs  an  undertaking  to  that  effect. 
Thousands  of  years  pass  ;  Jesus  is  on  the  cross  on 
Calvary.  Justice  appears,  and  presents  to  him  his  signed 
undertaking.  Jesus  accepts  it,  bows  his  head,  and  expires. 
Christian  salvation  consists  in  the  undoubting  belief  in 
the  transaction  here  described,  and  in  the  hearty  accept- 
ance of  the  release  offered  by  it. 

Never  let  us  deny  to  this  story  power  and  pathos,  or 
treat  with  hostility  ideas  which  have  entered  so  deep  into 
the  life  of  Christendom.  But  the  story  is  not  true  ;  it 
never  really  happened.  These  personages  never  did 
meet  together,  and  speak,  and  act,  in  the  manner  related. 
The  personages  of  the  Christian  Heaven  and  their  con- 
versations are  no  more  matter  of  fact  than  the  personages 


2 1 6  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

of  the  Greek  Olympus  and  their  conversations.  Sir 
Robert  Phillimore  seeks  to  tie  up  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land to  a  belief  in  the  personality  of  Satan,  and  he  might 
as  well  seek  to  tie  it  up  to  a  belief  in  the  personality  of 
Tisiphone.  Satan  and  Tisiphone  are  alike  not  real 
persons,  but  shadows  thrown  by  man's  guilt  and  terrors. 
Mr.  Moody's  audiences  are  the  last  people  who  will  come 
to  perceive  all  this  ;  they  are  chiefly  made  up  from  the 
main  body  of  lovers  of  our  popular  religion,— the  serious 
and  steady  middle  class,  with  its  bounded  horizons.  .  To 
the  more  educated  class  above  this,  and  to  the  more 
free  class  below  it,  the  grave  beliefs  of  the  religious 
middle  class  in  such  stories  as  Mr.  Moody's  story  of  the 
Covenant  of  Redemption  are  impossible  now  ;  to  the 
religious  middle  class  itself  they  will  be  impossible  soon. 
Salvation  by  Jesus  Christ,  therefore,  if  it  has  any  reality, 
must  be  placed  somewhere  else  than  in  a  hearty  consent 
to  Mr.  Moody's  story.  Something  Mr.  Moody  and  his 
hearers  have  experienced  from  Jesus,  let  us  own,  which 
does  them  good  ;  but  of  this  something  they  have  not 
yet  succeeded  in  getting  the  right  history. — God  and  the 
Bible. 

PROFESSOR   CLIFFORD. 

We  find  a  brilliant  mathematician,  Professor  Clifford, 
launching  invectives  which,  if  they  were  just,  would  prove 
either  that  no  religion  at  all  has  any  right  to  mankind's 


Professor  Clifford.  217 

regard,  or  that  the  Christian  religion,  at  all  events,  has 
none.  He  calls  Christianity  'that  awful  plague  which 
has  destroyed  two  civilisations  and  but  barely  failed  to 
slay  such  promise  of  good  as  is  now  struggling  to  live 
amongst  men.'  He  warns  his  fellow-men  against  showing 
any  tenderness  to  '  the  slender  remnant  of  a  system  which 
has  made  its  red  mark  on  history  and  still  lives  to  threaten 
mankind.'  'The  grotesque  forms  of  its  intellectual  be- 
lief,' he  scornfully  adds  by  way  of  finish,  'have  survived 
the  discredit  of  its  moral  teaching.' 

But  these  are  merely  the  crackling  fireworks  of  youth- 
ful paradox.  One  reads  it  all,  half  sighing,  half  smiling, 
as  the  declamation  of  a  clever  and  confident  youth,  with 
the  hopeless  inexperience,  irredeemable  by  any  clever- 
ness, of  his  age.  Only  when  one  is  young  and  headstrong 
can  one  thus  prefer  bravado  to  experience,  can  one 
stand  by  the  Sea  of  Time,  and  instead  of  listening  to  the 
solemn  and  rhythmical  beat  of  its  waves,  choose  to  fill 
the  air  with  one's  own  whoopings  to  start  the  echo.  But 
the  mass  of  plain  people  hear  such  talk  with  impatient 
indignation,  and  flock  all  the  more  eagerly  to  Messrs. 
Moody  and  Sankey.  They  feel  that  the  brilliant  free- 
thinker and  revolutionist  talks  about  their  religion  and 
yet  is  all  abroad  in  it,  does  not  know  either  that  or  the 
great  facts  of  human  life  ;  and  they  go  to  those  who 
know  them  better.  And  the  plain  people  are  not  wrong. 
Compared  with  Professor  CHfford,  Messrs.  Moody  and 


2 1 8  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

Sankey  are  masters  of  the  philosophy  of  history.  Men 
are  not  mistaken  in  thinking  that  Christianity  has  done 
them  good,  in  loving  it,  in  wishing  to  listen  to  those  who 
will  talk  to  them  about  what  they  love,  and  will  talk  of  it 
with  admiration  and  gratitude,  not  contempt  and  hatred. 
Christianity  is  truly,  as  in  '  Literature  and  Dogma '  I  have 
called  it,  '  the  greatest  and  happiest  stroke  ever  yet  made 
for  human  perfection.'  Men  do  not  err,  they  are  on  firm 
ground  of  experience,  when  they  say  that  they  have 
practically  found  Christianity  to  be  something  incom- 
parably beneficent.  Where  they  err,  is  in  their  way  of 
accounting  for  this,  and  of  assigning  its  causes.  — 6^f^ 
and  the  Bible. 

PHILOSOPHICAL  RADICALS. 

If  the  matter  were  not  so  serious,  one  could  hardly  help 
smiling  at  the  chagrin  and  manifest  perplexity  of  such  of 
one's  friends  as  happen  to  be  philosophical  radicals  and 
secularists,  at  having  to  reckon  with  religion  again  when 
they  thought  its  day  was  quite  gone  by,  and  that  they 
need  not  study  it  any  more  or  take  account  of  it  any 
more,  but  it  was  passing  out,  and  a  kind  of  new  gospel, 
half  Bentham  half  Cobden,  in  which  they  were  themselves 
particularly  strong,  was  coming  in.  And  perhaps  there  is 
no  one  who  more  deserves  to  be  compassionated,  than 
an  elderly  or  middle-aged  man  of  this  kind,  such  as 
several  of  their  Parliamentary  spokesmen  and  respresen 


Philosophical  Radicals.  2  \  9 


tatives  are.  For  perhaps  the  younger  men  of  the  party 
may  take  heart  of  grace,  and  acquaint  thernselves  a  Uttle 
with  rehgion,  now  that  they  see  its  day  is  by  no  means 
over.  But,  for  the  older  ones,  their  mental  habits  are 
formed,  and  it  is  almost  too  late  for  them  to  begin  such 
new  studies.  However,  a  wave  of  religious  reaction  is 
evidently  passing  over  Europe  ;  due  very  much  to  our 
revolutionary  and  philosophical  friends  having  insisted 
upon  it  that  religion  was  gone  by  and  unnecessary,,  when 
it  was  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  Obedience,  strange 
as  it  may  sound,  is  a  real  need  of  human  nature  ; — above 
all,  moral  and  religious  obedience.  Undoubtedly,  there 
are  in  the  popular  classes  of  every  country  forces  of  piety 
and  religion  capable  of  being  brought  into  an  alliance 
with  the  Church,  the  national  society  for  the  promotion 
of  goodness,  in  that  country.  And  of  no  people  may 
this  be  more  certainly  said  than  of  ours. — Last  Essays. 

A   HISTORICAL   PARALLEL. 

It  is  often  said  :  If  Jesus  Christ  came  now,  his  religion 
would  be  rejected.  And  this  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  the  world  now,  as  the  Jewish  people  formerly,  has 
something  which  thwarts  and  confuses  its  perception  of 
what  righteousness  really  is.  It  is  so  ;  and  the  thwart- 
ing cause  is  the  same  now  as  then  : — the  dogmatic 
system  current,  the  so-called  orthodox  theology.  This 
prevents  now,  as  it  did  then,  that  which  righteousness 


2  20  Philosophy  and  Religion.  - 

really  is,  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  from  being 
rightly  received,  from  operating  fully,  and  from  accom- 
plishing its  due  effect. 

So  true  is  this,  that  we  have  only  to  look  at  our  own 
community  to  see  the  almost  precise  parallel,  so  far  as 
religion  is  concerned,  to  the  state  of  things  presented  in 
Judaea  when  Jesus  Christ  came.     The  multitudes  are  the 
same  everywhere.     The  chief  priests  and  elders  of  the 
people,  and  the  scribes,  are  our  bishops  and  dogmatists, 
with  their  pseudo-science  of  learned  theology  blinding 
their  eyes,  and  always, — whenever  simple  souls  are  dis- 
posed to  think  that  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus  is 
true  religion,  and  that  the  Great  Personal  First  Cause  and 
the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son  have  nothing  to  do  with 
it, — eager  to  cry  out  :   This  people  tJiatknoweth  not  the  law 
are  cursed !     The  Pharisees,  with  their  genuine  concern 
for  religion,  but  total  want  of  perception  of  what  religion 
really  is,  and  by  their  temper,  attitude,  and  aims  doing 
their  best  to  make  religion  impossible,  are  the  Protestant 
Dissenters.     The  Sadducees  are  our  friends  the  philoso- 
phical Liberals,  who  believe  neither  in  angel  nor  spirit, 
but  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.     Even  the  Roman  governor 
has  his  close  parallel  in  our  celebrated  aristocracy,  with 
its  superficial  good  sense  and  good  nature,  its  complete 
inaptitude  for  ideas,  its  profound  helplessness  in  presence 
of  all  great  spiritual  movements.     And  the  result  is,  that 
the   splendid   promises   to   righteousness   made   by  the 


A  Historical  Parallel.  221 

Hebrew  prophets,  claimed  by  the  Jews  as  the  property  of 
Judaism,  claimed  by  us  as  the  property  of  Christianity, 
are  almost  as  ludicrously  inapplicable  to  our  religious 
state  now,  as  to  theirs  then. — Literature  and  Dogma. 

CHRISTIANITY  WIIL   SURVIVE. 

Christianity  will  survive  because  of  its  natural  truth. 
Those  who  fancied  that  they  had  done  with  it,  those  who 
had  thrown  it  aside  because  what  was  presented  to  them 
under  its  name  was  so  unreceivable,  will  have  to  return 
to  it  again,  and  to  learn  it  better.  The  Latin  nations, — 
even  the  southern  Latin  nations, — will  have  to  acquaint 
themselves  with  that  fundamental  document  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  Bible,  and  to  discover  wherein  it  differs  from 
'a  text  of  Hesiod.'  Neither  will  the  old  forms  of  Chris- 
tian worship  be  extinguished  by  the  growth  of  a  truer 
conception  of  their  essential  contents.  Those  forms, 
thrown  out  at  dimly-grasped  truth,  approximative  and 
provisional  representations  of  it,  and  which  are  now  sur- 
rounded with  such  an  atmosphere  of  tender  and  profound 
sentiment,  will  not  disappear.  They  will  survive  as  poetry. 
Above  all,  among  the  Catholic  nations  will  this  be  the 
case.  And,  indeed,  one  must  wonder  at  the  fatuity  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  that  she  should  not  herself 
see  what  a  future  there  is  for  her  here.  Will  there  never 
arise  among  Catholics  some  great  soul,  to  perceive  that 
the  eternity  and  universality,  which  is  vainly  claimed  for 


222  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

' — — • — 

Catholic  dogma  and  the  ultramontane  system,  might 
really  be  possible  for  Catholic  worship?  But  to  rule 
over  the  moment  and  the  credulous  has  more  attraction 
than  to  work  for  the  future  and  the  sane. 

Christianity,  however,  will  find  the  ways  for  its  own 
future.  What  is  certain  is  that  it  will  not  disappear. 
Whatever  progress  may  be  made  in  science,  art,  and 
literary  culture, — however  much  higher,  more  general, 
and  more  effective  than  at  present  the  value  for  them  may 
become, — Christianity  will  be  still  there  as  what  these 
rest  against  and  imply  ;  as  the  indispensable  background, 
the  three-fourths  of  life.  It  is  true,  while 'the  remaining 
fourth  is  ill-cared  for,  the  three-fourths  themselves  must 
also  suffer  with  it.  But  this  does  but  bring  us  to  the 
old  and  true  Socratic  thesis  of  the  interdependence  of 
virtue  and  knowledge. — Last  Essays. 

RELIGIOUS  RECONSTRUCTION. 

In  the  same  spirit  in  which  she  judges  Bishop  Colenso, 
Miss  Cobbe,  like  so  many  earnest  liberals  of  our  practical 
race,  both  here  and  in  America,  herself  sets  vigorously 
about  a  positive  reconstruction  of  religion,  about  making 
a  religion  of  the  future  out  of  hand,  or  at  least  setting 
about  making  it.  We  must  not  rest,  she  and  they  are 
always  thinking  and  saying,  in  negative  criticism,  we  must 
be  creative  and  constructive  ;  hence  we  have  such  works 
as  her  recent  'Religious  Duty,'  and  works  still  more  con- 


Religious  Reconstritdioii.  223 


siderable,  perhaps,  by  others,  which  will  be  in  every  one's 
mind.  These  works  often  have  much  ability  ;  they  often 
spring  out  of  sincere  convictions,  and  a  sincere  wish  to  do 
good  ;  and  they  sometimes,  perhaps,  do  good.  Their 
fault  is  (if  I  may  be  permitted  to  say  so)  one  which  they 
have  in  common  with  the  British  College  of  Health,  in 
the  New  Road.  Every  one  knows  the  British  College  of 
Health  ;  it  is  that  building  with  the  lion  and  the  statue 
of  the  Goddess  Hygeia  before  it ;  at  least,  I  am  sure 
about  the  lion,  though  I  am  not  absolutely  certain  about 
the  Goddess  Hygeia.  This  building  does  credit,  perhaps, 
to  the  resources  of  Dr.  Morrison  and  his  disciples  ;  but 
it  falls  a  good  deal  short  of  one's  idea  of  what  a  British 
College  of  Health  ought  to  be.  In  England,  where  we 
hate  public  interference  and  love  individual  enterprise, 
we  have  a  whole  crop  of  places  like  the  British  College 
of  Health  ;  the  grand  name  without  the  grand  thing,. 
Unluckily,  creditable  to  individual  enterprise  as  they  are, 
they  tend  to  impair  our  taste  by  making  us  forget  what 
more  grandiose,  noble,  or  beautiful  character  properly 
belongs  to  a  public  institution.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  the  religions  of  the  future  of  Miss  Cobbe  and  others. 
Creditable,  like  the  British  College  of  Health,  to  the 
resources  of  their  authors,  they  yet  tend  to  make  us 
forget  what  more  grandiose,  noble,  or  beautiful  character 
properly  belongs  to  religious  constructions. — Essays  in 
Critidstn. 


2  2  4-  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


INTERREGNUM. 

Miracles,  the  mainstay  of  popular  religion,  are  touched 
by  Ithuriel's  spear.  They  are  beginning  to  dissolve  ;  but 
what  are  we  to  expect  during  the  process  ?  Probably, 
amongst  many  religious  people,  vehement  efforts  at  reac- 
tion, a  recrudescence  of  superstition  ;  the  passionate  re- 
solve to  keep  hold  on  what  is  slipping  away  from  them,  by 
giving  up  more  and  more  the  use  of  reason  in  religion, 
and  by  resting  more  and  more  on  authority.  The 
Church  of  Rome  is  the  great  upholder  of  authority  as 
against  reason  in  religion  ;  and  it  will  be  strange  if  in  the 
coming  time  of  transition  the  Church  of  Rome  does  not 


gam. 


But  for  many  more  than  those  whom  Rome  attracts, 
there  will  be  an  interval,  between  the  time  when  men 
take  the  religion  of  the  Bible  to  be  a  thaumaturgy  and 
the  time  when  they  perceive  it  to  be  something  different, 
in  which  they  will  be  prone  to  throw  aside  the  religion  of 
the  Bible  altogether  as  a  delusion.  And  this,  again,  will 
be  mainly  the  fault, — if  fault  that  can  be  called  which 
was  an  inevitable  error,— of  the  religious  people  them- 
selves, who,  from  the  time  of  the  Apostles  downwards, 
have  insisted  upon  it  that  religion  shall  be  a  thaumaturgy 
or  nothing.  For  very  many,  therefore,  when  it  cannot  be 
a  thaumaturgy,  it  will  be  nothing.  And  very  likely  there 
will   come  a  day  when  there  will  be  less  religion  than 


Interregnum.  225 


even  now.  For  the  religion  of  the  Bible  is  so  simple  and 
powerful,  that  even  those  who  make  the  Bible  a  thau- 
maturgy  get  hold  of  the  religion,  because  they  read  the 
Bible  :  but,  if  men  do  not  read  the  Bible,  they  cannot  get 
hold  of  the  religion  in  it.  And  then  will  be  fulfilled  the 
saying  of  the  prophet  Amos  :  '  Behold,  the  days  come, 
saith  the  Eternal,  that  I  will  send  a  famine  in  the  land, 
not  a  famine  of  bread,  nor  a  thirst  for  water,  but  of  hear- 
ing the  words  of  the  Eternal  ;  and  they  shall  wander  from 
sea  to  sea,  and  from  the  north  even  to  the  east  they  shall 
run  to  and  fro  to  seek  the  word  of  the  Eternal,  and  shall 
not  find  it.' 

Nevertheless,  as  after  this  mournful  prophecy  the 
*  herdsman  of  Tekoah  goes  on  to  say  :  '  There  shall  yet 
not  the  least  grain  of  Israel  fall  to  the  earth  !  '  To  the 
Bible  men  will  return  ;  and  why  ?  Because  they  cannot 
do  without  it.  Because  happiness  is  our  being's  end 
and  aim,  and  happiness  belongs  to  righteousness,  and 
righteousness  is  revealed  in  the  Bible.  For  this  simple 
reason  men  will  return  to  the  Bible,  just  as  a  man  who 
tried  to  give  up  food,  thinking  it  was  a  vain  thing  and 
he  could  do  without  it,  would  return  to  food  ;  or  a  man 
who  tried  to  give  up  sleep,  thinking  it  was  a  vain  thing 
and  he  could  do  without  it,  would  return  to  sleep.  Then 
there  will  come  a  time  of  reconstruction. — Literature  and 
Dogma. 


2  26  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

OBJECT  OF  'LITERATURE   AND   DOGMA: 

The  freethinking  of  one  age  is  the  common-sense  of 
the  next,  and  the  Christian  world  will  certainly  learn  to 
transform  beliefs  which  it  now  thinks  to  be  untransform- 
able.  The  way  will  be  found.  And  the  new  Christianity 
will  call  forth  more  effort  in  the  individual  who  uses  it 
than  the  old,  will  require  more  open  and  instructed 
minds  for  its  reception  ;  and  this  is  progress.  But  we 
live  at  the  beginning  of  a  great  transition,  which  cannot 
well  be  accomplished  with  jut  confusion  and  distress.  I 
do  not  pretend  to  operate  a  general  change  of  religious 
opinion,  such  as  can  only  come  to  pass  through  the  opera- 
tion of  many  labourers,  working,  all  of  them,  towards  a 
like  end,  and  by  the  instrumentality,  in  a  very  consider- 
able degree,  of  the  clergy.  One  inan's  life,  what  is  it  ? 
says  Goethe  ;  but  even  one  man  in  his  short  term  may 
do  something  to  ease  a  severe  transition,  to  diminish 
violent  shocks  in  it,  and  bitter  pain.  With  this  end  in 
view,  I  have  addressed  myself  to  men  such  as  are  happily 
not  rare  in  this  country,  men  of  free  and  active  minds, 
who,  though  they  may  be  profoundly  dissatisfied  with  the 
received  theology,  are  yet  interested  in  religion,  and  more 
or  less  acquainted  with  the  Bible,  These  I  have  en- 
deavoured to  help  ;  and  they,  if  they  are  helped,  will  in 
their  turn  help  others, — God  and  the  Bible. 


The  Reproach  of  Presumption.        227 

THE  REPROACH  OF  PRESUMPTION. 

The  charge  of  presumption,  and  of  setting  oneself  up 
above  all  the  great  men  of  past  days,  above  '  the  wisdom 
of  all  nations,'  which  is  often  brought  against  those  who 
pronounce  the  old  view  of  our  religion  to  be  untenable, 
springs  out  of  a  failure  to  perceive  how  little  the  abandon- 
ment of  certain  long-current  beliefs  depends  upon  a 
man's  own  will,  or  even  upon  his  sum  of  powers  natural 
or  acquired.  Sir  Matthew  Hale  was  not  inferior  in  force 
of  mind  to  a  modern  Chief  Justice  because  he  believed 
in  witchcraft.  Nay,  the  more  enlightened  modern,  who 
drops  errors  of  his  forefathers  by  help  of  that  mass  of 
experience  which  his  forefathers  aided  in  accumulating, 
may  often  be,  according  to  the  well-known  saying,  '  a 
dwarf  on  the  giant's  shoulders.'  His  merits  may  be  small 
compared  with  those  of  the  giant.  Perhaps  his  only 
merit  is,  that  he  has  had  the  good  sense  to  get  up  on  the 
giant's  shoulders,  instead  of  trotting  contentedly  along  in 
his  shadow.  Yet  even  this,  surely,  is  something. — God 
and  the  Bible.  • 

INTELLECTUAL   SERIOUSNESS. 

It  is  the  habit  of  increased  intellectual  seriousness,  bred 
of  a  wider  experience  and  of  a  larger  acquaintance  with 
men's  mental  history,  which  is  now  transforming  religion 
in  our  country.     Intelligent  people  among  the  educated 

Q  2 


2  28  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

classes  grow  more  and  more  sceptical  of  the  miraculous 
data  which  supply  the  basis  for-  our  received  theology. 
The  habit  is  a  conquest  of  the  advancing  human  race  ; 
it  spreads  and  spreads  ;  it  cannot  but  be,  and  will  be,  on 
the  whole  and  in  the  end,  a  boon  to  us.  But  many  and 
many  an  individual  it  may  find  unprepared  for  it,  and 
may  act  upon  him  injuriously.  Goethe's  saying  is  well 
known  :  'All  which  merely  frees  our  spirit,  without 
giving  us  the  command  over  ourselves,  is  deleterious.' ' 
It  is  of  small  use  by  itself  alone,  however  it  may  be  in- 
dispensable, this  one  single  current  of  intellectual  serious- 
ness \ — of  small  use  to  those  who  are  untouched  by  the 
great  current  of  seriousness  about  conduct.  To  a  frivo- 
lous and  sensual  upper  class,  to  a  raw  and  sensual  lower 
class,  to  feel  the  greater  current  may  be  more  than  a 
compensation  for  not  feeling  the  lesser.  They  do  now 
feel  the  lesser  current,  however  ;  and  it  removes  them 
farther  than  ever  from  the  influence  of  the  greater.  —  C'l?^/ 
and  the  Bible. 

WEAK  SIDE   OF  POPULAR   CHRISTIANITY. 

• 

Thk  fault  of  popular  Christianity,  as  an  endeavour  after 
righteousness  by  Jesus  Christy  is  not,  like  the  fault  of  popu- 
lar Judaism  as  an  endeavour  after  salvatiott  by  righteous- 
fiess,  first  and  foremost  a  moral  fault.    It  is,  much  more,  an 

'  Alles  was  unsern  Geist  befreit,  ohne  uns  die  Herrschaft  iiber 
tins  sell)st  zu  geben,  ist  verderblich. 


Weak  Side  of  Popular  Christianity.   229 

intellectual  one.  But  it  is  not  on  that  account  insignifi- 
cant. Dr.  Mozley  urges,  that  'no  inquiry  is  obligatory 
upon  religious  minds  in  matters  of  the  supernatural  and 
miraculous,'  because,  says  he,  though  '  the  human  mind 
must  refuse  to  submit  to  anything  contrary  to  moral 
sense  in  Scripture,'  yet  '  there  is  no  moral  question  raised 
by  the  fact  of  a  miracle,  nor  does  a  supernatural  doctrine 
challenge  any  moral  resistance.'  As  if  there  were  no  pos- 
sible resistance  to  religious  doctrines  but  a  resistance  on 
the  ground  of  their  immorality  !  As  if  intellectual  resist- 
ance to  them  counted  for  nothing  !  The  objections  to 
popular  Christianity  are  not  moral  objections,  but  intel- 
lectual revolt  against  its  demonstrations  by  miracle  and 
metaphysics.  To  be  intellectually  convinced  of  a  thing's 
want  of  conformity  to  truth  and  fact  is  surely  an  in- 
superable obstacle  to  receiving  it,  even  though  there  be 
no  moral  obstacle  added.  And  no  moral  advantages  of 
a  doctrine  can  avail  to  save  it,  in  presence  of  the  intellec- 
tual conviction  of  its  want  of  conformity  with  truth  and 
fact.  And  if  the  want  of  conformity  exists,  it  is  sure  to 
be  one  day  found  out.  '  Things  are  what  they  are,  and 
the  consequences  of  them  will  be  what  they  will  be  ; '  and 
one  inevitable  consequence  of  a  thing's  want  of  conformity 
with  truth  and  fact  is,  that  sooner  or  later  the  human 
mind  perceives  it.  And  whoever  thinks  that  the  ground- 
belief  of  Christians  is  true  and  indispensable,  but  that  in 
the  account  they  give  of  it,  and  of  the  reasons  for  holding 


230  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

it,  there  is  a  want  of  conformity  with  truth  and  fact,  may 
well  desire  to  find  a  better  account  and  better  reasons, 
and  to  prepare  the  way  for  their  admission  and  for  their 
acquiring  some  strength  and  consistency  in  men's  minds, 
against  the  day  when  the  old  means  of  reliance  fail.— Z^'i/ 
Essays. 

POPULAR  SCIENCE   OF  RELIGION. 

For  the  popular  science  of  religion  one  has,  or  ought  to 
have,  an  infinite  tenderness.  It  is  the  spontaneous  work 
of  nature.  It  is  the  travail  of  the  human  mind  to  adapt 
to  its  grasp  and  employment  great  ideas,  of  which  it  feels 
the  attraction,  but  for  which,  except  as  given  to  it  by 
this  travail,  it  would  have  been  immature.  The  imperfect 
science  of  the  Bible,  formulated  in  the  so-called  Apostles' 
Creed,  was  the  only  vehicle  by  which,  to  generation  after 
generation  of  men,  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus  could 
gain  any  access  ;  and  in  this  sense  we  may  even  call  it, 
taking  the  point  of  view  of  popular  theology.  Providential. 
And  this  rude  criticism  is  full  of  poetry,  and  in  this 
poetry  we  have  been  all  nursed.  To  call  it,  as  many  of 
our  philosophical  Liberal  friends  are  fond  of  calling  it, 
*a  degrading  superstition,'  is  as  untrue  as  it  is  a  poor 
compliment  to  human  nature,  which  produced  this 
criticism  and  used  it.  It  is  an  Aberglaube,  or  extra 
belief  and  fairy-tale,  produced  by  taking  certain  great 
names  and  great  promises  too  literally  and  materially  ; 


Popular  Science  of  Religion.  231 

but  it  is  not  a  degrading  superstition. — Literature  and 
Dogma. 

MISSIONS. 

The  non- Christian   religions   are   not  to  the  wise   man 
mere   monsters  ;  he   knows  they  have  much  good  and 
truth   in   them.     He   knows   that   Mahometanism,   and 
Brahminism,  and  Buddhism,  are  not  what  the  missionaries 
call  them  ;  and  he  knows,  too,  how  really  unfit  the  mission- 
aries in  general  are  to  cope  with  them.     For  any  one  who 
weighs  the  matter  well,  the  missionary  in  clerical  coat  and 
gaiters  whom  one  sees  in  woodcuts  preaching  to  a  group 
ot  picturesque  Orientals,  is,  from  the  inadequacy  of  his 
criticism  both  of  his  hearers'  religion  and  of  his  own,  and 
his  signal  misunderstanding  of  the  very  Volume  he  holds 
in    his    hand,    a    hardly    less   grotesque   object   in   his 
intellectual  equipment  for  his  task  than  in  his  outward 
attire.      Yet   everyone   allows   that    this   strange    figure 
carries  something  of  what  is  called  European  civilisation 
with  him,  and  a  good  part  of  this  is  due  to  Christianity. 
But  even  the  Christianity  itself  that   he  preaches,   im- 
bedded in  a  false  theology  though   it  be,   cannot   but 
contain,  in  a  greater  or  lesser  measure  as  it  may  happen, 
these  three  things  :  the  all-importance  of  righteousness, 
the  method  of  Jesus,  the  secret  of  Jesus.     No  Christianity 
that  is  ever  preached  but  manages  to  carry  something  of 
these  along  with  it. 


Philosophy  and  Religion. 


And  if  it  carries  them  to  Mahometanism,  they  are 
carried  where  of  the  all-importance  of  righteousness  there 
is  a  knowledge,  but  of  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus, 
by  which  alone  is  righteousness  possible,  hardly  any 
sense  at  all.  If  it  carries  them  to  Brahminism,  they  are 
carried  where  of  the  all-importance  of  righteousness,  the 
foundation  of  the  whole  matter,  there  is  a  wholly  insuf- 
ficient sense ;  and  where  religion  is,  above  all,  that 
metaphysical  conception,  or  metaphysical  play,  so  dear  to 
the  Aryan  genius  and  to  M.  Emile  Burnouf.  If  it  carries 
them  to  Buddhism,  they  are  carried  to  a  religion  to  be 
saluted  with  respect,  indeed;  for  it  has  not  only  the  sense 
for  righteousness,  it  has,  even,  it  has  the  secret  of  Jesus. 
But  it  employs  the  secret  ill,  because  greatly  wanting  in 
the  method,  because  utterly  wanting  in  the  sweet  reason- 
ableness, the  unerring  balance,  the  epieikeia.  Therefore 
to  all  whom  it  visits,  the  Christianity  of  our  missions, 
madequate  as  may  be  its  criticism  of  the  Bible,  brings 
what  may  do  them  good.  And  if  it  brings  the  Bible 
itself,  it  brings  what  may  not  only  help  the  good 
preached,  but  may  also  with  time  dissipate  the  erroneous 
criticism  which  accompanies  this  and  impairs  it. — Litera- 
ture and  Dogma. 

MIRACLES   COMING  IN. 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  proneness  of  the 
Imman  mind  to  take  miracles  as  evidence,  and  to  seek  for 


Miracles  Coming  In.  233 

miracles  as  evidence  ;  or  the  extent  to  which  religion, 
and  religion  of  a  true  and  admirable  kind,  has  been,  and 
is  still,  held  in  connexion  with  a  reliance  upon  miracles. 
This  reliance  will  long  outlast  the  reliance  on  the  super- 
natural prescience  of  prophecy,  for  it  is  not  exposed  to 
the  same  tests.  To  pick  Scripture-miracles  one  by  one 
to  pieces  is  an  odious  and  repulsive  task  ;  it  is  also  an 
unprofitable  one,  for  whatever  we  may  think  of  the 
affirmative  demonstrations  of  them,  a  negative  demonstra- 
tion of  them  is,  from  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  im- 
possible. And  yet  the  human  mind  is  assuredly  passing 
away,  however  slowly,  from  this  hold  of  reliance  also  ; 
and  those  who  make  it  their  stay  will  more  and  more  find 
it  fail  them,  will  more  and  more  feel  themselves  disturbed 
shaken,  distressed,  and  bewildered. 

For  it  is  what  we  call  the  Time- Spirit  vthich.  is  sapping 
the  proof  from  miracles, — it  is  the  'Zeit-Geist'  itself. 
Whether  we  attack  them,  or  whether  we  defend  them, 
does  not  much  matter.  The  human  mind,  as  its  expe- 
rience widens,  is  turning  away  from  them.  And  for  this 
reason  :  //  sees,  as  its  experience  widens,  how  they  arise. 
It  sees  that,  under  certain  circumstances,  they  always  do 
arise  ;  and  that  they  have  not  more  solidity  in  one  case 
than  another.  Under  certain  circumstances,  wherever 
men  are  found,  there  is,  as  Shakspeare  says^ 

No  natural  exhalation  in  the  sky, 

No  scape  of  nature,  no  distemper'd  day, 


2  34  Philosophy  and  Religmt. 

No  common  wind,  no  customed  event, 
But  they  will  pluck  away  his  natural  cause, 
And  call  them  meteors,  prodigies,  and  signs, 
Abortives,  presages,  and  tongues  of  heaven. 

Imposture  is  so  far  from  being  the  general  rule  in  these 
cases,  that  it  is  the  rare  exception.  Signs  and  wonders 
men's  minds  will  have,  and  they  create  them  honestly  and 
naturally;  yet  not  so  but  that  we  can  see  how  they  create 
them. — Literature  and  Dogma. 

MIRACLES  GOING  OUT. 

It  was  not  to  discredit  miracles  that  '  Literature  and 
Dogma '  was  written,  but  because  miracles  are  so  widely 
and  deeply  discredited  already.  And  it  is  lost  labour, 
I  repeat,  to  be  arguing  for  or  against  them.  Mankind 
did  not  originally  accept  miracles  because  it  had  formal 
proof  of  them,  but  because  its  imperfect  experience  in- 
clined it  to  them.  Nor  will  mankind  now  drop  miracles 
because  it  has  formal  proof  against  them,  but  because  its 
more  complete  experience  detaches  it  from  them.  The 
final  result  was  inevitable,  as  soon  as  ever  miracles  began 
to  embarrass  people,  began  to  be  relegated, — especially 
the  greater  miracles, — to  a  certain  limited  period  long 
ago  over.  Irenffius  says,  that  people  in  his  time  had 
arisen  from  the  dead,  '  and  abode  with  us  a  good  number 
of  years.' '     One  of  his  commentators,  embarrassed  by 

'  See  Irenceus,  Adv.  Har.^  lib.  ii,  cap.  xxxii,  4  ;  with  the  note 
en  the  passage  in  Stieren's  edition. 


Miracles  Going  Out.  235 

such  stupendous  miracles  occurring  outside  of  the  Bible, 
makes  an  attempt  to  explain  away  this  remarkable  alle- 
gation ;  but  the  most  recent  editor  of  Irenccus  points 
out,  with  truth,  that  the  attempt  is  vain.  Irenaeus  was 
as  sure  to  want  and  to  find  miracles  as  the  Bible-writers 
were.  And  sooner  or  later  mankind  was  sure  to  see  how 
universally  and  easily  assertions  like  this  of  Irenaeus  arose, 
and  that  they  arose  with  the  Bible-writers  just  as  they 
arose  with  Irenaeus,  and  are  not  a  whit  more  solid  coming 
from  them  than  from  hinx 

A  Catholic  imagines  that  he  gets  over  the  difficulty 
by  believing,  or  professing  to  believe,  the  miracles  of 
Irenseus  and  Epiphanius  and  others,  as  well  as  those  of  the 
Bible- writers.  But  for  him,  too,  even  for  him,  the  Time- 
Spirit  is  gradually  becoming  too  strong,  h.%  we  may  say 
in  general,  that,  although  an  educated  Protestant  may 
manage  to  retain  for  his  own  lifetime  the  belief  in  miracles 
in  which  he  has  been  brought  up,  yet  his  children  will 
lose  it;  so  to  an  educated  Catholic  we  may  say,  putting 
the  change  only  a  little  farther  off,  that  (unless  some  un- 
foreseen deluge  should  overwhelm  European  civilisation, 
leaving  everything  to  be  begun  anew)  his  grandchildren 
will  lose  it.  They  will  lose  it  insensibly,  as  the  eighteenth 
century  saw  the  gradual  extinction,  among  the  educated 
classes,  of  that  belief  in  witchcraft  which  in  the  century 
previous  a  man  like  Sir  Matthew  Hale  could  affirm  to 
have  the  authority  of  Scripture  and  of  the  wisdom  of  all 


236  Philosophy  and  Rellg  ion. 

nations, — spoke  of,  in  short,  just  as  many  religious  people 
speak  of  miracles  now.  Witchcraft  is  but  one  depart- 
ment of  the  miraculous  ;  and  it  was  comparatively  easy, 
no  doubt,  to  abandon  one  department,  when  men  had  all 
the  rest  of  the  region  to  fall  back  upon.  Nevertheless 
the  forces  of  experience,  which  have  prevailed  against 
witchcraft,  will  inevitably  prevail  also  against  miracles  at 
large,  and  that  by  the  mere  progress  of  time. — God  and 
the  Bible. 

'  OFFENDICULUM'    OF  SCRUPULOUSNESS. 

The  last  of  Butler's  jottings  in  his  memorandum-book 
is  a  prayer  to  be  delivered  *  from  offendiculum  of  scrupu- 
lousness.' He  was  quite  right.  Religion  is  a  matter 
where  scrupulousness  has  been  far  too  active,  producing 
most  serious  mischief ;  and  where  it  is  singularly  out  of 
place.  I  am  the  very  last  person  to  wish  to  deny  it. 
Those,  therefore,  who  declared  their  consent  to  the 
Articles  long  ago,  and  who  are  usefully  engaged  in  the 
ministry  of  the  Church,  would  in  my  opinion  do  exceed- 
ingly ill  to  disquiet  themselves  about  having  given  a 
consent  to  the  Articles  formerly,  when  things  had  not 
moved  to  the  point  where  they  are  now,  and  did  not 
appear  to  men's  minds  as  they  now  appear.  '  Forgetting 
those  things  which  are  behind  and  reaching  forth  to  those 
things  which  are  before,'  should  in  these  cases  be  a  man's 
motto.   The  Church  is  properly  a  national  society  for  the 


'  Offendictilum'  of  Scrupulottsncss.     237 

promotion  of  goodness.  For  him  it  is  such  ;  he  ministers 
in  it  as  such.  He  has  never  to  use  the  Articles,  ne\er 
to  rehearse  them.  He  has  to  rehearse  the  prayers  and 
services  of  the  Church.  Much  of  these  he  may  rehearse 
as  the  literal,  beautiful  rendering  of  what  he  himself  feels 
and  believes.  The  rest  he  may  rehearse  as  an  approxi- 
mative rendering  of  it ; — as  language  thrown  out  by  other 
men,  in  other  times,  at  immense  objects  which  deeply 
engaged  their  affections  and  awe,  and  which  deeply 
engage  his  also  ;  objects  concerning  which,  moreover, 
adequate  statement  is  impossible.  To  him,  therefore, 
this  approximative  part  of  the  prayers  and  services  which 
he  rehearses  will  be  poetry.  It  is  a  great  error  to  think 
that  whatever  is  thus  perceived  to  be  poetry  ceases  to  be 
available  in  religion.  The  noblest  races  are  those  which 
know  how  to  make  the  most  serious  use  of  poetry. — Last 
Essays. 

JESUS  CHRIST  USED  POPULAR  LANGUAGE. 

The  great  reason  for  continuing  to  use  the  familiar  lan- 
guage of  the  religion  around  us  as  approximative  language 
ai^d  as  poetry,  although  we  cannot  take  it  literally,  is  that 
such  was,  likewise,  the  practice  of  Jesus.  For  evidently  it 
was  so.  And  evidently,  again,  the  immense  misapprehen- 
sion of  Jesus  and  of  his  meaning,  by  popular  religion,  comes 
in  part  from  such  having  been  his  practice.  But  if  Jesus 
used  this  way  of  speaking  in  spite  of  its  plainly  leading 


23<S  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

to  such  misapprehension,  it  must  have  been  because  it 
was  the  best  way  and  the  only  one.  For  it  was  not  by 
introducing  a  brand-new  rehgious  language,  and  by  parting 
with  all  the  old  and  cherished  images,  that  popular  re- 
ligion could  be  transformed  ;  but  by  keeping  the  old 
language  and  images,  and  as  far  as  possible  conveying 
into  them  the  soul  of  the  new  Christian  ideal. 

When  Jesus  talked  of  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  his 
glory  with  the  holy  angels,  setting  the  good  on  his  right 
hand  and  the  bad  on  his  left,  and  sending  away  the  bad 
into  everlasting  fire  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels, 
was  he  speaking  literally  ?  Did  Jesus  mean  that  all  this 
would  actually  happen?  Popular  religion  supposes  so. 
Yet  very  many  religious  people,  even  now,  suppose  that 
Jesus  was  but  using  the  figures  of  Messianic  judgment 
familiar  to  his  hearers,  in  order  to  impress  upon  them 
his  main  point  : — what  sort  of  spirit  and  of  practice  did 
really  tend  to  salvation,  and  what  did  not.  And  surely 
almost  every  one  must  perceive,  that  when  Jesus  spoke 
to  his  disciples  of  their  sitting  on  thrones  judging  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  or  of  their  drinking  new  wine 
with  him  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  he  was  adopting  their 
material  images  and  beliefs,  and  was  not  speaking  lite- 
rally. Yet  their  Master's  thus  adopting  their  material 
images  and  beliefs  could  not  but  confirm  the  disciples  in 
them.  And  so  it  did,  and  Christendom,  too,  after  them  ; 
yet  in  this  way,  apparently,  Jesus  chose  to  proceed. 


yesics  Christ  used  Popular  Language.     239 

But  some  one  may  say,  that  Jesus  used  this  language 
because  he  himself  shared  the  materialistic  notions  of  his 
disciples  about  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  thought  that 
coming  upon  the  clouds,  and  sitting  upon  thrones,  and 
drinking  wine,  would  really  occur  in  it,  and  was  mistaken  in 
thinking  so.  And  yet  there  are  plain  signs  that  this  cannot 
be  the  right  account  of  the  matter,  and  that  Jesus  did 
not  really  share  the  beliefs  of  his  disciples  or  conceive 
the  kingdom  of  God  as  they  did.  For  they  manifestly 
thought, — even  the  wisest  of  them,  and  aftpr  their  Master's 
death  as  well  as  before  it, — that  this  kingdom  was  to  be 
a  sudden,  miraculous,  outward  transformation  of  things, 
which  was  to  come  about  very  soon  and  in  their  own  life- 
time. Nevertheless  they  themselves  report  Jesus  saying 
what  is  in  direct  contradiction  to  all  this.  They  rei)ort 
him  describing  the  kingdom  of  God  as  an  inward  change 
requiring  to  be  spread  over  an  immense  time,  and 
coming  about  by  natural  means  and  gradual  growth,  not 
suddenly,  miraculously.  Jesus  compares  the  kingdom  of 
God  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed  and  to  a  handful  of  leaven. 
He  says  :  '  So  is  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  a  man  may  cast 
seed  in  the  ground,  and  may  go  to  bed  and  get  up  night 
and  day,  and  the  seed  shoots  and  extends  he  knoweth 
not  how.'  Jesus  told  his  disciples,  moreover,  that  the 
good  news  of  the  kingdom  had  to  be  preached  to  the 
whole  world.  The  whole  world  must  first  be  evangelised, 
no  work  of  one  generation,  but  of  centuries  and  centuries; 


240  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


and  then,  but  not  till  then,  should  the  end,  the  last  day, 
the  new  world,  the  grand  transformation  of  which  Jewish 
heads  were  so  full,  finally  come.  True,  the  disciples  also 
make  Jesus  speak  as  if  he  fancied  this  end  to  be  as  near 
as  they  did.  But  it  is  quite  manifest  that  Jesus  spoke  to 
them,  at  different  times,  of  two  ends  :  one,  the  end  of  the 
Jewish  state  and  nation,  which  any  one  who  could  '  discern 
tlie  signs  of  that  time  '  might  foresee  ;  the  other,  the  end 
of  the  world,  the  instatement  of  God's  kingdom  ;— and 
that  they  confused  the  two  ends  together.  Undeniably, 
therefore,  Jesus  saw  things  in  a  way  very  different  from 
theirs,  and  much  truer.  And  if  he  uses  their  materialising 
language  and  imagery,  then,  it  cannot  have  been  because 
he  shared  their  illusions.  Nevertheless,  he  uses  \\..^Last 
Essays. 

AVOID    VIOLENT  REVOLUTION. 

We  should  avoid  violent  revolution  in  the  words  and 
externals  of  religion.  Profound  sentiments  are  connected 
with  them  ;  they  are  aimed  at  the  highest  good,  however 
imperfectly  apprehended.  Their  form  often  gives  them 
beauty,  the  associations  which  cluster  around  them  gi^'e 
them  always  pathos  and  solemnity.  They  are  to  be 
used  as  poetry  ;  while  at  the  same  time  to  purge  and 
raise  our  view  of  that  ideal,  at  which  they  are  aimed, 
should  be  our  incessant  endeavour.  Else  the  use  of 
them  is  mere  dilettantism.     We  should  seek,  therefore,  to 


Avoid  Violent  Revohition.  241 

use  them  as  Jesus  did.  How  freely  Jesus  himself  used 
them,  we  see.  And  yet  what  a  difference  between  the 
meaning  he  put  upon  them,  and  the  meaning  put  upon 
them  by  the  Jews  !  In  how  general  a  sense  alone  can  it 
with  truth  be  said,  that  he  and  even  his  disciples  had  the 
same  aspirations,  the  same  final  aim  !  How  imperfectly 
did  his  disciples  apprehend  him  ;  how  imperfectly  must 
they  have  reported  him  !  But  the  result  has  justified  his 
way  of  proceeding.  For  while  he  carried  with  him,  so 
far  as  was  possible,  his  disciples,  and  the  world  after 
them,  and  all  who  even  now  see  him  through  the  eyes  of 
those  first  generations,  he  yet  also  marked  his  own  real 
meaning  so  indelibly,  that  it  shows  and  shines  clearly  out, 
to  satisfy  all  whom,— as  time  goes  on,  and  experience 
widens,  and  more  things  are  known,— the  old  imperfect 
apprehension  dissatisfies.  And  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  a  rejection  of  all  the  poetry  of  popular  religion  is 
necessary  or  advisable  now,  any  more  than  when  Jesus 
came.  But  it  is  an  aim  which  may  well  indeed  be  pur- 
sued with  enthusiasm,  to  make  the  true  meaning  of  Jesus, 
in  using  that  poetry,  emerge  and  prevail.  For  the  im- 
mense pathos,  so  perpetually  enlarged  upon,  of  his  life 
and  death,  does  really  culminate  here  :  that  Christians 
have  so  profoundly  misunderstood  him. — Last  Essays. 


R 


242  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  BASIS. 

It  is  not  that  the  scientific  sense  in  us  denies  the  right? 
of  the  poetic  sense,  which  employs  a  figured  and  imagi- 
native language.      But   the   language   of  the   dogmatic 
theology  is  not  figurative  and  poetic  language,  it  is  schol- 
astic and  scientific  language.      Assertions   in  scientific 
language  must  stand  the  tests  of  scientific  examination. 
Neither  is  it  that  the  scientific  sense  in  us  refuses  to  ad- 
mit willingly  and  reverently  the  name  of  God,  as  a  point  in 
which  the  religious  and  the  scientific  sense  may  meet,  as 
the  least  inadequate  name  for  that  universal  order  which 
the  intellect  feels  after  as  a  law,  and  the  heart  feels  after 
as  a  benefit.     '  We,  too,'  might  the  men  of  science  with 
truth  say  to  the  men  of  religion — '  we,  too,  would  gladly 
say  God,  if  only,  the  moment  one  says  God,  you  would 
not  pester  one  with  your  pretensions  of  knowing  all  about 
him.'     That  stream  of  tendency  by  which  all  things  seek 
to  fulfil  the  law  of  their  being,  and  which,  inasmuch  as  our 
idea  of  real  welfare  resolves  itself  into  this  fulfilment  of 
the  law  of  one's  being,  man  rightly  deems  the  fountain  of 
all  goodness,  and  calls  by  the  worthiest  and  most  solemn 
name  he  can,  which  is  God,  science  also  might  willingly 
own  for  the  fountain  of  all  goodness,  and  call  God.     But 
however  much  more  than  this  the  heart  may  with  pro- 
priety put  into  its  language  respecting  God,  this  is   as 
much  as  science  can  with  strictness  put  there. — St.  Paul 
and  Protestantism. 


The  Stream  of  Tendency.  243 


THE  STREAM  OF  TENDENCY. 

Many  excellent  people  are  crying  out  every  day,  that  all 
is  lost  in  religion  unless  we  can  affirm  that  God  is  a 
person  who  thinks  and  loves.  I  say  that,  unless  we 
can  verify  this,  it  is  impossible  to  build  religion  success- 
fully upon  it ;  and  it  cannot  be  verified.  Even  if  it 
could  be  shown  that  there  is  a  low  degree  of  probability 
for  it,  I  say  that  it  is  a  grave  and  fatal  error  to  imagine 
that  religion  can  be  built  on  what  has  a  low  degree  of 
probability.  However,  I  do  not  think  it  can  be  said 
that  there  is  even  a  low  degree  of  probability  for  the 
assertion  that  God  is  a  person  who  thinks  and  loves, 
properly  and  naturally  though  we  may  make  him  such  in 
the  language  of  feeling  ;  the  assertion  deals  with  what 
is  so  utterly  beyond  us.  But  I  maintain,  that,  starting 
from  what  may  be  verified  about  God, — that  he  is  the 
Eternal  which  makes  for  righteousness, — and  reading  the 
Bible  with  this  idea  to  govern  us,  we  have  here  the  ele- 
ments for  a  religion  more  solid,  serious,  awe-inspiring, 
and  profound,  than  any  which  the  world  has  yet  seen. 
True,  it  will  not  be  just  the  same  religion  which  prevails 
now  ;  but  who  supposes  that  the  religion  now  current  can 
go  on  always,  or  ought  to  go  on  ?  Nay  and  even  of  that 
much-decried  idea  of  God  as  the  streaui  of  tendency  by 
which  all  things  seek  to  fulfil  the  law  of  their  beings  it  may 
be  said  with  confidence  that  it  has  in  it  the  elements  of  a 

K  2 


244  PJiilosophy  arid  Religion. 


religion  new,  indeed,  but  in  the  highest  degree  seri->us, 
hopeful,  solemn,  and  profound. —  God  and  the  Bible. 

THE   'NOT  ourselves: 

In  the  first  place,  we  did  not  make  ourselves  and  our  na- 
ture, or  make  conduct  to  be  the  object  of  three-fourths  of 
that  nature  ;  we  did  not  provide  that  happiness  should 
follow  conduct,  as  it  undeniably  does  ;  that  the  sense  of 
succeeding,  going  right,  hitting  the  mark,  in  conduct, 
should  give  satisfaction,  and  a  very  high  satisfaction,  just  as 
really  as  the  sense  of  doing  well  in  his  work  gives  pleasure 
to  a  poet  or  painter,  or  accomplishing  what  he  tries  gives 
pleasure  to  a  man  who  is  learning  to  ride  or  to  shoot  ; 
or  as  satisfying  his  hunger,  also,  gives  pleasure  to  a  man 
who  is  hungry. 

All  this  we  did  not  make  ;  and,  in  the  next  place, 
our  dealing  with  it  at  all,  when  it  is  made,  is  not  wholly, 
or  even  nearly  wholly,  in  our  own  power.  Our  conduct 
is  capable,  irrespective  of  what  we  can  ourselves  certainly 
answer  for,  of  almost  infinitely  different  degrees  of  force 
and  energy  in  the  performance  of  it,  of  lucidity  and 
vividness  in  the  perception  of  it,  of  fulness  in  the  satis- 
faction from  it  ;  and  these  degrees  may  vary  from  day 
to  day,  and  quite  incalculably.  Facilities  and  felicities, — 
whence  do  they  come  ?  suggestions  and  stimulations, — 
where  do  they  tend  ?  hardly  a  day  passes  but  we  have 
some  experience  of  them.     And  so  Henry  More  was  led 


The  '  Not  Ou7^ selves'  245 

to  say,  that  'there  was  something  about  us  that  knew 
better,  often,  what  we  would  be  at  than  we  ourselves.' 
For  instance  :  everyone  can  understand  how  health  and 
freedom  from  pain  may  give  energy  for  conduct,  and 
how  a  neuralgia,  suppose,  may  diminish  it.  It  does  not 
depend  on  ourselves,  indeed,  whether  we  have  the 
neuralgia  or  not,  but  we  can  understand  its  impairing 
our  spirit.  But  the  strange  thing  is,  that  with  the  same 
neuralgia  we  may  find  ourselves  one  day  without  spirit 
and  energy  for  conduct,  and  another  day  with  them.  So 
that  we  may  most  truly  say  :  '  Left  to  ourselves,  we  sink 
and  perish  ;  visited,  we  lift  up  our  heads  and  live.' '  And 
we  may  well  give  ourselves,  in  grateful  and  devout  self- 
surrender,  to  that  by  which  we  are  thus  visited.  So  much 
is  there  incalculable,  so  much  that  belongs  to  no/ otirse/ves, 
in  conduct  ;  and  the  more  we  attend  to  conduct,  and 
the  more  we  value  it,  the  more  we  shall  feel  this. — 
Literature  and  Dogma. 

CONDUCT  THREE-FOURTHS  OF  LIFE. 

Surely,  if  there  be  anything  with  which  metaphysics 
have  nothing  to  do,  and  where  a  plain  man,  without 
skill  to  walk  in  the  arduous  paths  of  abstruse  reasoning, 
may  yet  find  himself  at  home,  it  is  religion.  For  the 
object  of  religion  is  conduct ;  and  conduct  is  really,  how- 
ever men  may  overlay  it  with  philosophical  disquisitions, 
'  Relicti  mtrgimur  et  perimus,  visitati  vero  erigimur  et  vivimus. 


2/|6  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

the  simplest  thing  in  the  world.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  the 
simplest  thing  in  the  world  as  far  as  understanding  is  con- 
cerned ;  as  regards  doing,  it  is  the  hardest  thing  in  the 
world.  Here  is  the  difficulty, — to  do  what  we  very  well 
know  ought  to  be  done  ;  and  instead  of  facing  this,  men 
have  searched  out  another  with  which  they  occupy  them- 
selves by  preference, — the  origin  of  what  is  called  the 
moral  sense,  the  genesis  and  physiology  of  conscience, 
and  so  on.  No  one  denies  that  here,  too,  is  difficulty, 
or  that  the  difficulty  is  a  proper  object  for  the  human 
faculties  to  be  exercised  upon  ;  but  the  difficulty  here  is 
speculative  It  is  not  the  difficulty  of  religion,  which  is 
a  practical  one  ;  and  it  often  tends  to  divert  attention 
from  this.  Yet  surely  the  difficulty  of  religion  is  great 
enough  by  itself,  if  men  would  but  consider  it,  to  satisfy 
the  most  voracious  appetite  for  difficulties.  It  extends  to 
Tightness  in  the  whole  range  of  what  we  call  conduct ;  in 
three-fourths,  therefore,  at  the  very  lowest  computation, 
of  human  life.  The  only  doubt  is  whether  we  ought  not 
to  make  the  range  of  conduct  wider  still,  and  to  say  it  is 
four-fifths  of  human  life,  or  five-sixths.  But  it  is  better  to 
be  under  the  mark  than  over  it  ;  so  let  us  be  content 
with  reckoning  conduct  as  three-fourths  of  human  life. — 
Literature  and  Dogma 


Morality  Touched  by  Emotion.        247 


MORALITY  TOUCHED   BY  EMOTION. 

The  antithesis  between  ethical  and  religious  is  quite 
a  false  one.  Ethical  means  practical,  it  relates  to  practice 
or  conduct  passing  into  habit  or  disposition.  Religious 
also  means  p7-actical,  but  practical  in  a  still  higher  degree  ; 
and  the  right  antithesis  to  both  ethical  and  religious,  is 
the  same  as  the  right  antithesis  to  practical :  namely, 
theoretical. 

Now,  propositions  about  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal 
Son  are  theoretical,  and  they  therefore  are  very  pro- 
perly opposed  to  propositions  which  are  moral  or  ethical  ; 
but  they  are  with  equal  propriety  opposed  to  propositions 
which  are  religious.  They  differ  in  kind  from  what  is 
religious,  while  what  is  ethical  agrees  in  kind  with  it. 
But  is  there,  therefore,  no  difference  between  what  is 
ethical,  or  morality,  and  religion  ?  There  is  a  difference  ; 
a  difference  of  degreee.  Religion,  if  we  allow  the  inten- 
tion of  human  thought  and  human  language  in  the  use 
of  the  word,  is  ethics  heightened,  enkindled,  lit  up  by 
feeling  ;  the  passage  from  morality  to  religion  is  made 
when  to  morality  is  applied  emotion.  And  the  true 
meaning  of  religion  is  thus,  not  simply  morality,  but 
morality  touched  by  emotion.  And  this  new  elevation  and 
inspiration  of  morality  is  well  marked  by  the  word 
'righteousness.'  Conduct  is  the  word  of  common  life, 
morality    is    the    word    of    philosophical    disquisition. 


248  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


righteousness  is  the  word  of  religion. — Literature  and 


Dogma. 


NATURAL  AND  REVEALED  RELIGION. 

As  we  have  pointed  out  the  falseness  of  the  common 
antithesis  between  ethical  and  religious^  let  us  anticipate 
the  objection  that  the  religion  here  spoken  of  is  but 
natural  religion,  by  pointing  out  the  falseness  of  the  com- 
mon antithesis,  also,  between  natural  and  revealed.  For 
that  in  us  which  is  really  natural  is,  in  truth,  revealed. 
We  awake  to  the  consciousness  of  it,  we  are  aware  of  it 
coming  forth  in  our  mind  ;  but  we  feel  that  we  did  not 
make  it,  that  it  is  discovered  to  us,  that  it  is  what  it  is 
whether  we  will  or  no.  If  we  are  little  concerned  about 
it,  we  say  it  is  natural ;  if  much,  we  say  it  is  revealed. 
But  the  difference  between  the  two  is  not  one  of  kind, 
only  of  degree.  The  real  antithesis,  to  natural  and  re- 
vealed alike,  is  invented.,  artificial.  Religion  springing  out 
of  an  experience  of  the  power,  the  grandeur,  the  necessity 
of  righteousness,  is  revealed  religion,  whether  we  find  it 
in  Sophocles  or  in  Isaiah.  '  The  will  of  mortal  men  did 
not  beget  it,  neither  shall  oblivion  ever  lay  it  to  sleep.' 
A  system  of  theological  notions  about  personality,  essence, 
existence,  consubstantiality,  is  artificial  religion,  and  is  the 
proper  opposite  to  revealed ;  since  it  is  a  religion  which 
comes  forth  in  no  one's  consciousness,  but  is  invented 
by  theologians, — able  men  with  uncommon  talents  for 


Nahtral  and  Revealed  Religion.       249 

abstruse  reasoning.  This  religion  is  in  no  sense  revealed, 
just  because  it  is  in  no  sense  natural.  And  revealed  re- 
ligion is  properly  so  named,  just  in  proportion  as  it  is  in 
a  pre-eminent  degree  natural. 

The  religion  of  the  Bible,  therefore,  is  well  said  to  be 
revealed,  because  the  great  natural  truth,  that  '  righteous- 
ness tendeth  to  life,'  is  seized  and  exhibited  there  with 
such  incomparable  force  and  efficacy.  All,  or  very  nearly 
all,  the  nations  of  mankind  have  recognised  the  import- 
ance of  conduct,  and  have  attributed  to  it  a  natural  obli- 
gation. They,  however,  looked  at  conduct,  not  as  some- 
thing full  of  happiness  and  joy,  but  as  something  one 
could  not  manage  to  do  without.  But  :  '  Sion  heard  of 
it  and  rejoiced,  and  the  daughters  of  Judah  were  glad, 
because  of  thy  judgments,  O  Eternal  ! '  Happiness  is 
our  being's  end  and  aim,  and  no  one  has  ever  come  near 
Israel  in  feeling,  and  in  making  others-  feel,  that  to 
righteousness  belongs  happiness  I  The  pro'^igies  and  the 
marvellous  of  Bible-religion  are  common  to  it  witli  all 
religions  ;  the  love  of  righteousness,  in  this  eminency,  is 
its  own. — Literature  and  Dogma. 

THE    WITNESS  OF  ISRAEL. 

Clearly,  unless  a  sense  or  endowment  of  human  nature, 
however  in  itself  real  and  beneficent,  has  some  signal 
representative  among  mankind,  it  tends  to  be  pressed 
upon  by  other  senses  and  endowments,  to  suffer  from  its 


250  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

own  want  of  energy,  and  to  be  more  and  more  pushed 
out  of  sight.  Anyone,  for  instance,  who  will  go  to  the 
Potteries,  and  will  look  at  the  tawdry,  glaring,  ill-pro- 
portioned ware  which  is  being  made  there  for  certain 
American  and  colonial  markets,  will  easily  convince  him- 
self how,  in  our  people  and  kindred,  the  sense  for  the 
arts  of  design,  though  it  is  certainly  planted  in  human 
nature,  might  dwindle  and  sink  to  almost  nothing,  if  it 
were  not  for  the  witness  borne  to  this  sense,  and  the  pro- 
test offered  against  its  extinction,  by  the  brilliant  aesthetic 
endowment  and  artistic  work  of  ancient  Greece.  And 
one  cannot  look  out  over  the  world  without  seeing  that 
the  same  sort  of  thing  might  very  well  befall  conduct, 
too,  if  it  were  not  for  the  signal  witness  borne  by  Israel. 

Then  there  is  the  practical  force  of  the  example  ;  and 
this  is  even  more  important.  Everyone  is  aware  how 
those,  who  want  to  cultivate  any  sense  or  endowment  in 
themselves,  must  be  habitually  conversant  with  the  works 
of  people  who  have  been  eminent  for  that  sense,  must 
study  them,  catch  inspiration  from  them.  Only  in  this 
way,  indeed,  can  progress  be  made.  And  as  long  as  the 
world  lasts,  all  who  want  to  make  progress  in  righteous- 
ness will  come  to  Israel  for  inspiration,  as  to  the  people 
who  have  had  the  sense  for  righteousness  most  glowing 
and  strongest  ;  and  in  hearing  and  reading  the  w^ords 
Israel  has  uttered  for  us,  carers  for  conduct  will  find  a 
glow  and  a  force  they  will  find  nowhere  else.     As  well 


T J le  Witness  of  Israel.  251 

imagine  a  man  with  a  sense  for  sculpture  not  cultivating 
it  by  the  help  of  the  remains  of  Greek  art,  or  a  man  with 
a  sense  for  poetry  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of  Homer 
and  Shakspeare,  as  a  man  with  a  sense  for  conduct  not 
cultivating  it  by  the  help  of  the  Bible  !  And  this  sense, 
in  the  satisfying  of  which  we  come  naturally  to  the  Bible, 
is  a  sense  which  the  generality  of  men  have  far  more 
decidedly  than  they  have  the  sense  for  art  or  for  science. 
At  any  rate,  whether  this  or  that  man  has  it  decidedly  or 
not,  it  is  the  sense  which  has  to  do  with  three-fourths  of 
human  life. 

This  does  truly  constitute  for  Israel  a  most  extra- 
ordinary distinction.  In  spite  of  all  which  in  them 
and  in  their  character  is  unattractive,  nay,  repellent, — 
in  spite  of  their  shortcomings  even  in  religion  itself 
and  their  insignificance  in  everything  else, — this  petty, 
unsuccessful,  unamiable  people,  without  politics,  without 
science,  without  art,  without  charm,  deserve  their  great 
place  in  the  world's  regard,  and  are  likely  to  have  it 
more,  as  the  world  goes  on,  rather  than  less.  It  is 
secured  to  them  by  the  facts  of  human  nature,  and  by  the 
unalterable  constitution  of  things.  *  God  hath  given  com- 
mandment to  bless,  and  he  hath  blessed,  and  we  cannot 
reverse  it  ;  he  hath  not  seen  iniquity  in  Jacob,  and  he 
hath  not  seen  perverseness  in  Israel ;  the  Eternal,  his 
God,  is  with  him.' — Literature  and  Dogma. 


252  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


GREECE  AND   ISRAEL. 

What  the  Greeks  were,  and  what  they  accomplished,  and 
how  brilUant  a  course  they  ran,  we  know  ;  and  with  that 
knowledge  we  shall  not  be  forward  to  utter  against  them 
hard  censures.  But  thus  much,  at  least,  we  may  say, 
notwithstanding  all  the  glory  and  genius  of  Greece,  not- 
withstanding all  the  failure  and  fanaticism  of  Israel ; — 
thus  much  we  may  well  say,  as  often  as  we  contrast  the 
heart  and  mind  of  tlie  Grseco-Roman  world  in  its  matu- 
rity with  the  interior  joys  of  Israel  :  They  that*run  offer 
another  God  shall  have  great  trouble. 

For  Israel  advanced  from  the  God  of  Abraham, 
the  Mighty  who  requires  integrity  of  heart  and  inno- 
cency  of  hands,  to  the  God  of  Moses,  the  Eternal  who 
makes  for  righteousness  unalterably.  Then  the  law 
in  its  primitive  shape,  an  organism  having  for  its  heart 
the  Ten  Commandments,  arose.  It  formulated,  with 
authentic  voice  and  for  ever,  the  religion  of  Israel  as  a 
religion  in  which  ideas  of  moral  order  and  of  right  were 
paramount.  And  so  things  went  on  from  Moses  to 
Samuel,  and  from  Samuel  to  David,  and  from  David  to 
the  great  prophets  of  the  eighth  century  and  to  the 
Captivity,  and  from  that  to  the  Restoration,  and  from 
the  Restoration  to  Antiochus  and  the  invasion  of  Greek 
culture,  to  the  Maccabees  and  the  Book  of  Daniel,  and 
from  thence  to  the  Roman  conquest,  and  from  that  to 


Greece  ind  Israel.  253 

John  the  Baptist ; — until  all  the  wonderful  history  received 
its  solution  and  consummation  in  Jesus  Christ.  Through 
progress  and  backsliding,  amid  infectious  contact  with 
idolatry,  amid  survival  of  old  growths  of  superstition,  of 
the  crude  practices  of  the  past ;  amid  multiplication  of 
new  precepts  and  observances,  of  formalism  and  cere- 
monial ;  amid  the  solicitation  of  new  aspects  of  life  ;  in 
material  prosperity,  and  in  material  ruin  ; — more  and 
more  the  great  governing  characteristics  of  the  religion  of 
Israel  accentuated  and  asserted  themselves,  and  forced 
themselves  on  the  world's  attention  :  the  God  of  this 
religion,  with  his  eternal  summons  to  keep  judgment 
and  do  justice  ;  the  mission  of  this  religion,  to  bring  in 
everlasting  righteousness. — God  and  the  Bible. 

THE  DECALOGUE  BY  EVOLUTION. 

Suppose  that  our  moral  perceptions  and  rules  are  all  to 
be  traced  up,  as  evolutionists  say,  to  habits  due  to  one  or 
other  of  two  main  instincts, — the  reproductive  instinct 
and  the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  Let  us  take  an 
example  of  a  moral  rule  due  to  each  instinct.  For  a 
moral  rule  traceable,  on  our  present  supposition,  to  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  we  cannot  do  better  than  to 
take  '  the  first  commandment  with  promise  : '  Honour 
thy  father  and  thy  mother.  I  say  that  it  makes  not  tlie 
smallest  difference  to  religion,  whether  we  suppose  this 
commandment  to  be  thus  traceable  or  not. 


254  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

For  let  it  be  thus  traceable,  and  suppose  the  original 
natural  affection  of  the  young  to  their  parents  to  be  due 
to  a  sense  of  dependence  upon  them,  and  of  benefit  from 
them.  And  then,  when  the  dependence  and  benefit 
end,  when  the  young  can  shift  for  themselves,  the  natural 
affection  seems  in  the  lower  animals,  as  they  are  called, 
to  pass  away.  But  in  man  it  is  not  thus  evanescent.  For 
at  first,  perhaps,  there  were  some  who  from  weakness  or 
from  accident  felt  the  dependence  and  received  the  bene- 
fit longer  than  others,  and  in  such  was  formed  a  more 
deep  and  strong  tie  of  attachment.  And  while  their 
neighbours,  so  soon  as  they  were  of  adult  vigour,  heed- 
lessly left  the  side  of  their  parents,  and  troubled  them- 
selves about  them  no  more,  and  let  them  perish  ff  so  it 
might  happen,  these  few  remained  with  their  parents, 
and  grew  used  to  them  more  and  more,  and  finally  even 
fed  and  tended  them  when  they  grew  helpless.  Pre- 
sently they  began  to  be  shocked  at  their  neighbours' 
callous  neglect  of  those  who  had  begotten  them  and  borne 
them  ;  and  they  expostulated  with  their  neighbours,  and 
entreated  and  pleaded  that  their  own  way  was  best. 
Some  suffered,  perhaps,  for  their  interference  ;  some  had 
to  fight  for  their  parents  to  hinder  their  neighbours  mal- 
treating them  ;  and  all  the  more  fixed  in  their  new  feel- 
ings did  these  primitive  gropers  after  the  Fifth  Command- 
ment become. 

Meanwhile  this  extending   of  the  family  bond,  this 


The  Decalogue  by  Evolution.  255 

conquering  of  a  little  district  from  the  mere  animal  life, 
this  limiting  of  the  reign  of  blind,  selfish  impulse,  brought, 
we  may  well  believe,  more  order  into  the  homes  of  those 
who  practised  it,  and  with  more  order  more  well-doing, 
and  with  both  more  happiness.  And  when  the  reformers 
solicited  their  more  inhuman  neighbours  to  change  their 
ways,  they  must  always  have  had  to  back  them  the  re- 
membrance, more  or  less  alive  in  every  man,  of  an  early 
link  of  affection  with  his  parents  ;  but  now  they  had  their 
improved  manner  of  life  and  heightened  well-being  to 
back  them  too.  So  the  usage  of  the  minority  gradually 
became  the  usage  of  the  majority.  And  we  may  end 
this  long  chapter  of  suppositions  by  supposing  that  thus 
there  grew  at  last  to  be  communities  which  honoured 
their  fathers  and  mothers,  instead  of,  —as,  perhaps,  if  one 
went  back  far  enough,  one  would  find  to  have  been  the 
original  practice, — eating  them. 

But  all  this  took  place  during  that  which  was,  in  truth, 
a  twilight  ante-natal  life  of  humanity,  almost  as  much  as 
the  life  which  each  man  passes  in  the  womb  before  he  is 
born.  The  history  of  man  as  man  proper,  and  as"  dis- 
tinguished from  the  other  animals, — the  real  history  of 
our  race,  and  of  its  institutions, — does  not  begin  until 
stages  such  as  that  which  we  have  been  describing  are 
passed,  and  feelings  such  as  that  of  which  we  have  been 
tracing  the  growth  are  formed.  Man  and  his  history 
begin,  I  say,  when  he  becomes  distinctly  conscious  of 


256  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


feelings  which,  in  a  long  preparatory  period  of  obscure 
growth,  he  may  have  been  forming.  Then  he  calls  his 
habit,  acquired  by  a  process  which  he  does  not  recollect, 
nature  ;  and  he  gives  effect  to  it  in  fixed  customs,  rules, 
laws,  and  institutions.  His  religion  consists  in  acknow- 
ledging and  reverencing  the  awful  sanctions  with  which 
this  right  way  for  man  has,  he  believes,  been  invested  by 
the  mighty  }iot  ourselves  which  surrounds  us.  And  the 
more  emphatically  he  places  a  feeling  under  the  guardian- 
ship of  these  sanctions,  the  more  impressive  is  his  testi- 
mony to  the  hold  it  has  upon  him.  When  Israel  fixed 
the  feeling  of  a  child's  natural  attachment  to  its  parents 
by  the  commandment,  Honour  thy  father  and  thy 
mother,  that  thy  days  may  be  long  in  the  land  ivhich  the 
Eternal  thy  God  giveth  thee,  he  showed  that  he  had 
risen  to  regard  this  feeling, — slowly  and  precariously 
acquired  though  by  our  supposition  it  may  have  been,-^ 
as  a  sure,  solid,  and  sacred  part  of  the  constitution  of 
human  nature. 

But,  as  well  as  the  supposition  of  a  moral  habit  and 
rule  evolved  out  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  we 
are  to  take  the  supposition  of  a  moral  habit  and  rule 
evolved  out  of  the  reproductive  instinct.  And  here, 
indeed,  in  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  we  are  on 
ground  where  to  walk  right  is  of  vital  concern  to  men, 
and  where  disasters  are  plentiful.  Who  first,  in  the  early 
and  tentative  up-struggling  of  our  race,  who  first  discerned 


The  Decalogue  by  Evohition.  257 

them,  this  peril  of  disaster,  this  necessity  for  taking  heed 
to  one's  steps  ?  Who  was  he,  that,  amid  the  promiscuous 
concubinage  of  man's  commencements, — if  we  are  to 
suppose  that  out  of  the  sheer  animal  life  human  life 
had  to  evolve  itself  and  to  rise, — who  was  he  that  first, 
through  attachment  to  his  chance  companion  or  through 
attachment  to  his  supposed  ofispring,  gathered  himself 
together,  put  a  bridle  on  his  vague  appetites,  marked  off 
himself  and  his,  drew  the  imperfect  outline  of  the  circle 
of  home,  and  fixed  for  the  time  to  come  the  rudiments 
of  the  family  ?  Who  first,  amid  the  loose  solicitations 
of  sense,  obeyed  (for  create  it  he  did  not)'  the  mighty 
not  ourselves  which  makes  for  moral  order,  the  stream  of 
tendency  which  was  here  carrying  him,  and  our  embryo 
race  along  with  him,  towards  the  fulfilment  of  the  true 
law  of  their  being? — became  aware  of  it,  and  obeyed  it? 
Whoever  he  was,  he  would  soon  have  had  imitators ; 
for  never  was  a  more  decisive  step  taken  towards  bring- 
ing into  human  life  greater  order,  and,  with  greater 
order,  greater  well-doing  and  greater  happiness.  So  the 
example  was  followed,  and  a  habit  grew  up,  and  marriage 
was  instituted. 

And  thus,  again,  we  are  brought  to  the  point  where 
history  and  religion  begin.  And  at  this  point  we  first 
find  the  Hebrew  people,  with  polygamy  still  clinging  to 
it  as  a  survival  from  the  times  of  ignorance,  but  with  the 
marriage-tie  solidly  established,  strict  and  sacred,  as  we 

s 


2 58  '  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


see  it  between  Abraham  and  Sara.  Presently  this  same 
Hebrew  people,  with  that  aptitude  which,  as  I  say,  cha- 
racterised it  for  being  profoundly  impressed  by  ideas  of 
moral  order,  placed  in  the  Decalogue  the  marriage-tie 
under  the  express  and  solemn  sanction  of  the  Eternal, 
by  the  Seventh  Commandment :  Thou  shalt  not  co7nmit 
adultery. — God  and  the  Bible. 

PERSISTENCY  OF  ISRAELS  FAITH. 

Most  remarkable,  indeed,  is  the  inward  travail  to 
which,  in  the  six  hundred  years  that  followed  the  age  of 
David  and  Solomon,  the  many  and  rude  shocks  befalling 
Israel's  fundamental  idea.  Righteousness  tendeth  to  life, 
gave  occasion.  '  Wherefore  do  the  wicked  live,'  asks  Job, 
'  become  old,  yea,  are  mighty  in  power  ?  their  houses  are 
safe  from  fear,  neither  is  the  rod  of  God  upon  them  ? ' 
Job  himself  is  righteous,  and  yet  :  '  On  mine  eyelids  is 
the  shadow  of  death,  not  for  any  injustice  in  mine  hands.' 
All  through  the  Book  of  Job,  the  question,  how  this  can 
be,  is  over  and  over  again  asked  and  never  answered  ; 
inadequate  solutions  are  offered  and  repelled,  but  an 
adequate  solution  is  never  reached.  The  only  solution 
reached  is  that  of  silence  before  the  insoluble  :  '  I  will 
lay  mine  hand  upon  my  mouth.'  The  two  perceptions, 
Righteousness  tendeth  to  life,  and.  The  ungodly  prosper  in 
the  world,  are  left  confronting  one  another  like  Kantian 
antinomies.     '  The  earth  is  given  under  the  hand  of  the 


Persistency  of  Israel's  Faith.         259 


7aicked  !  '  and  yet  :  '  The  counsel  of  the  wicked  is  far  from 
me  ;  God  rewardeth  him,  and  he  shall  know  it !  '  And 
this  last,  the  original  perception,  remains  indestructible. 
The  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  has  been  called  sceptical, 
epicurean  ;  it  is  certainly  without  the  glow  and  hope 
which  animate  the  Bible  in  general.  It  belongs,  prob- 
ably, to  the  fourth  century  before  Christ,  to  the  latter 
and  worse  days  of  the  Persian  power  ;  with  difficulties 
pressing  the*Jewish  community  on  all  sides,  with  a  Persian 
governor  lording  it  in  Jerusalem,  with  resources  light 
and  taxes  heavy,  with  the  cancer  of  poverty  eating  into  the 
mass  of  the  people,  with  the  rich  estranged  from  the  poor 
and  from  the  national  traditions,  with  the  priesthood 
slack,  insincere,  and  worthless.  Composed  under  such 
circumstances,  the  book  has  been  said,  and  with  justice,  to 
breathe  resignation  at  the  grave  of  Israel.  Its  author  sees 
'  the  tears  of  the  oppressed,  and  they  had  no  comforter, 
and  on  the  side  of  their  oppressors  there  was  power  ; 
wherefore  I  praised  the  dead  which  are  already  dead  more 
than  the  living  which  are  yet  alive.'  He  sees  '  all  things 
come  alike  to  all,  there  is  one  event  to  the  righteous  and 
to  the  wicked.'  Attempts  at  a  philosophic  indifference 
appear,  at  a  sceptical  suspension  of  judgment,  at  an  easy 
ne  quid  nimis  :  '  Be  not  righteous  overmuch,  neither  make 
thyself  overwise  !  vrhy  shouldst  thou  destroy  thyself?' 
Vain  attempts,  even  at  a  moment  which  favoured  them  ! 
shows  of  scepticism,  vanishing  as  soon  as  uttered  before 

s  2 


2  6o  PJulosophy  and  Religion. 


the  intractable  -conscientiousness  of  Israel  !  For  the 
Preacher  makes  answer  against  himself:  'Though  a 
sinner  do  evil  a  hundred  times  and  his  days  be  prolonged, 
yet  surely  I  know  that  it  shall  be  well  with  them  that  fear 
God  ;  but  it  shall  not  be  well  with  the  wicked,  because 
he  feareth  not  before  God.' 

Malachi,  probably  almost  contemporary  with  the 
Preacher,  felt  the  pressure  of  the  same  circumstances,  had 
the  same  occasions  of  despondency.  All  around  him 
people  were  saying  :  '  Every  one  that  doeth  evil  is  good 
in  the  sight  of  the  Eternal,  and  he  delighteth  in  them  ; 
where  is  the  God  of  judgment?  it  is  vain  to  serve  God, 
and  what  profit  is  it  that  we  have  kept  his  ordinance  ?  ' 
What  a  change  from  the  clear  certitude  of  the  golden 
age  :  '  As  the  whirlwind  passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no 
more  ;  but  the  righteous  is  an  everlasting  foundation ! ' 
But  yet,  with  all  the  certitude  of  this  happier  past,  Malachi 
answers  on  behalf  of  the  Eternal  :  '  Unto  you  that  fear 
my  name  shall  the  sun  of  righteousness  arise  with  heahng 
in  his  wings  ! ' — Literature  and  Dogma. 

'COGITAVI  VIAS  ME  as: 

'  Cogitavi  vias  ineas,  et  converti  pedes  meos  in  testmonia 
Tua  \  I  called  mine  own  ways  to  remembrance,  and 
turned  my  feet  unto  Thy  testimonies.'  Israel  is  the 
great,  standing,  unsilenceable,  unshaken  witness  to  the 
necessity  of  minding  one's  ways,  of  conduct.     And  what- 


'  Cogitavi  Vias  incas!  261 


ever  else  he  may  have  done,  or  not  done,  he  can  assur- 
edly plead  :  Cogitavi  vias  meas.  *  Sacrifices  mark  a 
conception  in  which  morality  has  no  part,'  says  one  of  my 
critics  ;  'sacrifices  existed  in  Israel  ab  origine.^  Even  in 
his  historic  time  there  hung,  we  are  told,  about  Israel 
traces  of  an  inchoate  and  dark  stage,  remains  of  an  early 
'  conception  of  God  as  an  unseen  but  powerful  foe, 
whose  enmity  might  be  averted  by  the  death  of  victims. ' 
It  may  have  been  so.  But  still,  Israel  can  answer, 
still,  all  hampered  with  these  survivals  of  a  lower  world, 
cogitavi  vias  meas!  'Though  righteousness,'  pursues 
our  critic,  '  entered  largely  into  Israel's  conception  of  the 
Eternal,  yet  that  conception  contained  much  that  con- 
flicts with  righteousness.  The  God  of  Israel  often  ap- 
pears as  more  patriotic  than  righteous  ;  blesses  Jael,  for 
instance,  for  the  treacherous  murder  of  Sisera.'  '  Israel's 
God,'  this  objector  goes  on,  '  is  a  magnified  and  non- 
natural  man,  not  impassive  and  uniform  like  a  law  of 
nature,  but  angry  and  then  repenting  him,  jealous  and 
then  soothed.'  True,  Israel  may  again  answer  ;  but 
nevertheless,  with  all  this  mixture,  and  with  this  crude 
anthropomorphic  conception  of  God,  cogitavi  vias  meas  ! 
'  Israel's  religion  deals  in  ecstasy,  enthusiasm,  evocations 
of  the  dead.'  Cogitavi  vias  meas!  'The  current  idea  of 
righteousness  in  Israel  was  largely  made  up  of  ceremo- 
nial observances.'  Cogitavi  vias  meas  !  Finally,  in  spite 
of  all  this  thinking  upon  his  ways,   Israel  misdirected 


262  Ph ilosophy  and  Religion. 

them.  '  Tlie  Bible,'  cries  our  anti-Israelitish  critic, 
'failed  to  turn  the  hearts  of  those  to  whom  it  was  ad- 
dressed ;  what  a  commentary  is  afforded  by  Israel's  his- 
tory on  the  value  of  the  Bible  ! '  True,  as  Israel  managed 
his  profession  of  faith,  he  did  not  walk  by  it  aright,  it  did 
not  save  him  ; — but  did  he  on  that  account  drop  it  ? 
Cogitavi,  cogitavi  vias  meas  ! — God  and  the  Bible. 

'aberglaube: 

In  one  sense,  the  lofty  Messianic  ideas  of  'the  great 
and  notable  day  of  the  Eternal,'  'the  consolation  of 
Israel,'  '  the  restitution  of  all  things,'  are  even  more  im- 
portant than  the  solid  but  humbler  idea,  righteousness 
tendeth  to  life,  out  of  which  they  arose.  In  another  sense 
they  are  much  less  important.  They  are  more  important, 
because  they  are  the  development  of  this  idea  and  prove 
its  strength.  It  might  have  been  crushed  and  baffled  by 
the  falsification  events  seemed  to  delight  in  giving  to  it  ; 
that,  instead  of  being  crushed  and  baffled,  it  took  this 
magnificent  flight,  shows  its  innate  power.  Moreover,  the 
Messianic  ideas  do  in  a  wonderful  manner  attract  emotion 
to  the  ideas  of  conduct  and  morality,  attract  it  to  them 
and  combine  it  with  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  idea 
that  righteousness  tendeth  to  life  has  a  firm,  experimental 
ground,  which  the  Messianic  ideas  have  not.  And  the 
day  comes  when  the  possession  of  such  a  ground  is  in- 
valuable. 


Aberglaubel  263 


That  the  spirit  of  man  should  entertain  hopes  and 
anticiiDations,  beyond  what  it  actually  knows  and  can 
verify,  is  quite  natural.  Human  life  could  not  have  the 
scope,  and  depth,  and  progress  it  has,  were  this  otherwise. 
It  is  natural,  too,  to  make  these  hopes  and  anticipations 
give  in  their  turn  support  to  the  simple  and  humble 
experience  which  was  their  original  ground.  Israel, 
therefore,  who  originally  followed  righteousness  because 
he  felt  that  it  tended  to  life,  might  and  did  naturally 
come  at  last  to  follow  it  because  it  would  enable  him  to 
stand  before  the  Son  of  Man  at  his  coming,  and  to  share 
in  the  triumph  of  the  saints  of  the  Most  High. 

But  this  latter  belief  has  not  the  same  character  as  the 
belief  which  it  is  thus  set  to  confirm.  It  is  a  kind  of 
fairy-tale,  which  a  man  tells  himself,  which  no  one,  we 
grant,  can  prove  impossible  to  turn  out  true,  but  which 
no  one,  also,  can  prove  certain  to  turn  out  true.  It  is 
exactly  what  is  expressed  by  the  German  word  'Aber- 
glaube,'  extra-belief,  belief  beyond  what  is  certain  and 
verifiable.  Our  word  '  superstition  '  had  by  its  derivation 
this  same  meaning,  but  it  has  come  to  be  used  in  a  merely 
bad  sense,  and  to  mean  a  childish  and  craven  religiosity. 
With  the  German  word  it  is  not  so  ;  therefore  Goethe 
can  say  with  propriety  and  truth  :  '  Aberglaube  is  the 
poetry  of  life, — der  Aberglaube  ist  die  Foesie  des  LebensJ 
It  is  so.  Extra-belief,  that  which  we  hope,  augur,  imagine, 
is  the  poetry  of  life,  and  has  the  rights  of  poetry.     But  it 


264  PJiilosophy  and  Religion. 

is  not  science  ;  and  yet  it  tends  always  to  imagine  itself 
science,  to  substitute  itself  for  science,  to  make  itself  the 
ground  of  the  very  science  out  of  which  it  has  grown. 
The  Messianic  ideas,  which  were  the  poetry  of  life  to 
Israel  in  the  age  when  Jesus  Christ  came,  did  this ; 
and  it  is  the  more  important  to  mark  that  they  did  it, 
because  similar  ideas  have  so  signally  done  the  same 
thing  with  popular  Christianity. — Literature  and  Dogma. 

WHAT  JESUS   CHRIST  EFFECTED. 

Signs  there  are,  without  doubt,  of  others,  before  Jesus 
Christ,  trying  to  identify  the  Messiah  of  popular  Jewish 
hope, — the  triumphant  Root  of  David,  the  mystic  Son  of 
Man,—  with  an  ideal  of  meekness,  inwardness,  patience, 
and  self-denial.  And  well  might  reformers  try  to  effect 
this  identification,  for  the  true  line  of  Israel's  progress  lay 
through  it  !  But  not  he  who  tries  makes  an  epoch,  but 
he  who  effects  ;  and  the  identification  which  was  needed 
Jesus  Christ  effected.  Henceforth  the  true  Israelite  was, 
undoubtedly,  he  who  allied  himself  with  this  identifica- 
tion ;  who  perceived  its  incomparable  fruitfulness,  its 
continuance  of  the  real  tradition  of  Israel,  its  corre- 
spondence with  the  ruling  idea  of  the  Hebrew  spirit. 
Through  righteousness  to  happiness  I  or,  in  Bible  words  : 
To  him  that  ordereth  his  conversatio7i  right  shall  he  shown 
the  salvation  of  God!  That  tlie  Jewish  nation  at  large, 
and  its  rulers,  refused  to  accept  the  identification,  shows 


What  Jesus  Christ  Effected.  265 

only  that  want  of  power  to  penetrate  through  wraps 
and  appearances  to  the  essence  of  things,  which  the 
majority  of  mankind  always  display.  The  national  and 
social  character  of  their  theocracy  was  everything  to  the 
Jews,  and  they  could  see  no  blessings  in  a  revolution 
which  annulled  it. — Lite7-ature  and  Dogtna. 

' EPIEIKEIA'   AGAIN. 

Jesus  Christ's  new  and  different  way  of  putting  things  was 
the  secret  of  his  succeeding  where  the  prophets  failed. 
And  this  new  way  he  had  of  putting  things  is  what  is 
indicated  by  the  expression  epieikeia, — an  expression  best 
rendered,  as  I  have  elsewhere  said,  by  these  two  words : 
'sweet  reasonableness.'  For  that  which  is  epieikes  is  that 
which  has  an  air  of  truth  and  likelihood  ;  and  that  which 
has  an  air  of  truth  and  likelihood  is  prepossessing.  Now, 
never  were  there  utterances  concerning  conduct  and 
righteousness, — Israel's  master-concern,  and  the  master- 
topic  of  the  New  Testament  as  well  as  of  the  Old, 
• — which  so  carried  with  them  an  air  of  consummate  truth 
and  likelihood  as  Jesus  Christ's  did  ;  and  never,  therefore, 
were  any  utterances  so  irresistibly  prepossessing.  He 
put  things  in  such  a  way  that  his  hearer  was  led  to  take 
each  rule  or  fact  of  conduct  by  its  inward  side,  its  effect 
on  the  heart  and  character  ;  then  the  reason  of  the  thing, 
the  meaning  of  what  had  been  mere  matter  of  blind  rule, 
flashed  upon  him.     The  hearer  could  distinguish  between 


2  66  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

what  was  only  ceremony,  and  what  was  conduct ;  and  the 
hardest  rule  of  conduct  came  to  appear  to  him  infinitely 
reasonable  and  natural,  and  therefore  infinitely  preposses?- 
ing.  A  return  upon  themselves,  and  a  consequent  intui- 
tion of  the  truth  and  reason  of  the  matter  of  conduct  in 
question,  gave  men  for  right  action  the  clearness,  spirit, 
energy,  happiness,  they  had  lost. — Literature  and  Dogma. 

MORAL    THERAPEUTICS. 

In  one  respect  alone  have  the  miracles  of  Jesus  Christ 
a  more  real  ground  than  the  mass  of  miracles  of 
which  we  have  the  relation.  Medical  science  has  never 
gauged, — never,  perhaps,  enough  set  itself  to  gauge, — the 
intimate  connexion  between  moral  fault  and  disease.  I'o 
what  extent,  or  in  how  many  cases,  what  is  called  illness 
is  due  to  moral  springs  having  been  used  amiss, — whether 
by  being  over-used  or  by  not  being  used  sufficiently, — we 
hardly  at  all  know,  and  we  too  little  inquire.  Certainly 
it  is  due  to  this  very  much  more  than  we  commonly  think ; 
and  the  more  it  is  due  to  this,  the  more  do  moral  thera- 
peutics rise  in  possibility  and  importance.^  The  bringer 
of  light  and  happiness,  the  calmer  and  pacifier,  or  invigo- 
rator  and  stimulator,  is  one  of  the  chiefest  of  doctors. 
Such  a  doctor  was  Jesus  ;  such  an  operator,  by  an  effica- 

'  Consult  the  Charmides  of  Plato  (chap,  v.^  for  a  remarkable 
account  of  the  theory  of  such  a  treatment,  attrilnited  by  Socrates  to 
Zamolxis,  the  god-king  of  the  Thracians. 


Moral  Therapeittics.  267 

cious  and  real,  though  little  observed  and  little  employed 
agency,  upon  what  we,  in  the  language  of  popular  super- 
stition, call  the  unclean  spirits,  but  which  are  to  be  desig- 
nated more  literally  and  more  correctly  as  the  uncleared, 
ujipurified  spirits,  which  came  raging  and  madding  before 
him.  This  his  own  language  shows,  if  we  know  how  to 
read  it.  '  What  does  it  matter  ivhether  I  say,  Thy  sins 
are  forgiven  thee  I  or  whether  I  say.  Arise  and  walk  I ' 
And  again  :  '  Thou  art  made  whole ;  sin  no  more,  lest  a 
worse  thing  befall  thee.''  His  reporters,  we  must  remem- 
ber, are  men  who  saw  thaumaturgy  in  all  that  Jesus  did, 
and  who  saw  in  all  sickness  and  disaster  visitations  from 
God,  and  they  bend  his  language  accordingly.  But  indica- 
tions enough  remain  to  show  the  line  of  the  Master,  his 
perception  of  the  large  part  of  moral  cause  in  many  kinds 
of  disease,  and  his  method  of  addressing  to  this  part  his 
cure. 

It  would  never  have  done,  indeed,  to  have  men  pro- 
nouncing right  and  left  that  this  and  that  was  a  judgment, 
and  how,  and  for  what,  and  on  whom.  And  so,  when  the 
disciples,  seeing  an  afflicted  person,  asked  whether  this 
man  had  done  sin  or  his  parents,  Jesus  checked  them 
and  said  :  '  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  but  that  the 
works  of  God  might  be  made  manifest  in  him.'  Not  the 
less  clear  is  the  belief  of  Jesus  himself  in  the  moral  root  of 
much  physical  disease,  and  in  moral  therapeutics  ;  and  it 
is  important  to  note  well  the  instances  of  miracles  where 


268  PhilosopJiy  and  Religion. 

this  belief  comes  in.  For  the  action  of  Jesus  in  these  in- 
stances, however  it  may  be  ampHfied  in  the  reports,  was 
real  ;  but  it  is  not,  therefore,  as  popular  religion  fancies, 
thaumaturgy, — it  is  not  what  people  are  fond  of  calling 
the  superfiatural,  but  what  is  better  called  the  non-natural. 
It  is,  on  the  contrary,  like  the  grace  of  Raphael,  or  the 
grand  style  of  Phidias,  eminently  natural  ;  but  it  is  above 
common,  low-pitched  nature  ;  it  is  a  line  of  nature  not 
yet  mastered  or  followed  out. — Literature  and  Dogma. 

THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  PRESENTATION  OF 
JESUS  CHRIST. 

The  New  Testament  contains  all  that  we  know  of  a  won- 
derful spirit,  far  above  the  heads  of  his  reporters,  still 
farther  above  the  head  of  our  popular  theology,  which  has 
added  its  own  misunderstanding  of  the  reporters  to  the 
reporters'  misunderstanding  of  Jesus.  And  it  was  quite 
inevitable  that  anything  so  superior  and  so  profound 
should  be  imperfectly  understood  by  those  amongst  whom 
it  first  appeared,  and  for  a  very  long  time  afterwards  ;  and 
that  it  should  come  at  last  gradually  to  stand  out  clearer 
only  by  time, — Time^  as  the  Greek  maxim  says,  the  wisest 
of  all  things^  for  he  is  the  unfailing  discoverer. 

Yet,  however  much  is  discovered,  the  object  of  our 
scrutiny  must  still  be  beyond  us,  must  still  transcend  our 
adequate  knowledge,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because  of 
the  character  of  the  first  and  only  records  of  him.     But  in 


New  Testament  Presentation,  &e.       269 

the  view  now  taken  we  have  at  least  a  wonderful  figure 
transcending  his  time,  transcending  his  disciples, — attach- 
ing them  but  transcending  them ;  in  very  much  that  he 
uttered  going  far  above  their  heads,  treating  Scripture  and 
prophecy  like  a  master  while  they  treated  it  like  children, 
resting  his  doctrine  on  internal  evidence  while  they  rested 
it  on  miracles  ;  and  yet,  by  his  incomparable  lucidity  and 
penetrativeness,  planting  his  profound  veins  of  thought 
in  their  memory  along  with  their  own  notions  and  pre- 
possessions, to  come  out  all  mixed  up  together,  but  still 
distinguishable  one  day  and  separable  ; — and  leaving  his 
word  thus  to  bear  fruit  for  the  future. — Literature  and 
Dogma. 

JESUS  CHRIST  AND  SOCRATES. 

A  GREAT  solicitude  is  always  shown  by  popular  Chris- 
tianity to  establish  a  radical  difference  between  Jesus  and 
a  teacher  like  Socrates.  Ordinary  theologians  establish 
this  difference  by  transcendental  distinctions  into  which 
plain  people  cannot  follow  them.  But  what  really  does 
make  the  radical  difference  between  Jesus  and  Socrates 
is,  that  such  a  conception  as  Paul's  conception  oi  faith 
would,  if  applied  to  Socrates,  be  out  of  place  and  ineffec- 
tive. Socrates  inspired  boundless  friendship  and  esteem  ; 
but  a  penetrating  enthusiasm  of  love,  sympathy,  pity, 
adoration,  reinforcing  the  inspiration  of  reason  and  duty 
where  this  inspiration  is  of  insufficient  power,  does  not 


270  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

belong  to  Socrates.  With  Jesus  it  is  different.  On  this 
point  it  is  needless  to  argue  ;  history  has  proved.  In  the 
midst  of  errors  the  most  prosaic,  the  most  immoral,  the 
most  unscriptural,  concerning  God,  Christ,  and  righteous- 
ness, the  immense  emotion  of  love  and  sympathy  inspired 
by  the  person  and  character  of  Jesus  has  had  to  work 
almost  alone  by  itself  for  righteousness  ;  and  it  has 
worked  wonders.  The  surpassing  religious  grandeur  of 
Paul's  conception  of  faith  is  that  it  seizes  a  real  salutary 
emotional  force  of  incalculable  magnitude,  and  reinforces 
moral  effort  with  it. — St  Paul  and  Protestantism. 

THE  MARVELLOUS   WORK  AND    WONDER. 

The  '  marvellous  work  and  wonder '  about  the  saving 
truth  which  the  simple  receive  is,  not  that,  being  difficult  to 
the  reason,  it  is  yet  got  hold  of  by  the  unlettered  and  not 
by  the  wise  ;  but  that,  being  so  simple,  it  should  yet  be 
so  immense,  important,  indispensable ;  and  that,  being 
so  immense,  important,  indispensable,  it  should  yet 
so  often  be  followed  by  quite  unlettered  people,  and 
neglected  by  such  very  clever  ones.  The  clever  are 
attending  to  other  things, — things  which  do  task  the 
reason  and  intelligence,  and  in  which  the  unlettered  have 
no  skill  and  no  voice  :  these  things  however  are,  at  most, 
only  one-fourth  of  life.  And  this  absurdity,  for  such  it 
really  is,  w*e  see  every  day  ; — people  attending  to  the  diffi- 
cult science  of  matters  where  the  plain  practice  they  quite 


The  Marvellous  Work  and  Wojider.  2  7 1 

let  slip.  How  many  people  will  be  now  '  busy  with  Mr. 
Darwin's  new  book,  so  admirably  ingenious,  on  the  natural 
history  of  the  emotions,  who  yet  are  always  using  their 
own  emotions  in  the  worst  possible  manner  !  They  are 
eager  to  know  how  their  emotions  arose,  how  these  came 
to  express  themselves  as  they  do  ;  yet  there  the  emotions 
now  are,  and  have  for  a  long  time  been,  and  the  first  thing 
for  any  sane  man  to  do  is  to  make  a  proper  use  of  them, 
and  to  know  how  to  make  a  proper  use  is  not  difficult ; — 
but  all  this  we  never  think  of,  but  investigate  zealously 
how  they  arose  !  Such  persons  are  just  like  those 
learned  inquirers  the  Cynic  laughed  at,  who  were  so  busy 
about  the  strayings  of  Ulysses,  so  inattentive  to  their 
own. 

And  Israel's  greatness  was  that  he  was  so  impatient  of 
trifling  of  this  kind,  of  being  busy  with  one-fourth  of  life 
while  the  three-fourths,  conduct,  was  forgotten.  And 
Israel  boldly  said :  '  They  that  seek  the  Eternal  under- 
stand all  things ; '  that  is,  they  are  occupied  with  conduct, 
righteousness,  which  truly  is,  as  we  have  seen,  at  least 
three-fourths  of  life,  and  which  Israel  thought  the  whole 
of  it.  They  have  a  hold  on  three-fourths  of  life,  while  it 
may  be  that  their  great,  clever,  and  accomplished  neigh- 
bours have  a  hold  on  only  one-fourth,  or  part  of  one- 
fourth,  of  life.  Which  is  the  solid  and  sensible  man,  which 
understands  most,  witnch  hvt's  most  ?     Compare  a  Metho- 

'  Written  in  1872. 


272  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

dist  day-labourer  with  some  dissolute,  gifted,  brilliant 
grandee,  who  thinks  nothing  of  him  ! — but  the  first  deals 
successfully  with  nearly  the  whole  of  life,  while  the 
second  is  all  abroad  in  it.  Compare  some  simple  and 
pious  monk,  at  Rome,  with  one  of  those  frivolous  men 
of  taste  whom  we  have  all  seen  there  ! — each  knows  no- 
thing of  what  interests  the  other  ;  but  which  is  the  more 
vital  concern  for  a  man  :  conduct,  or  arts  and  antiquities  ? 
Nay,  and  however  false  even  his  Biblical  criticism, 
the  believer  who  applies  the  method  and  the  secret  of 
Jesus  has  a  width  of  range  and  sureness  of  foothold  in 
life,  which  the  best  scientific  and  literary  critic  of  the 
Bible,  who  applies  them  not,  is  without ;  because  the  first 
is  right  in  what  affects  three-fourths  of  life,  and  the 
second  in  what  affects  but  one-fourth,  or  even  but  one- 
eighth.  Each  has  a  secret  of  which  the  other,  who  has 
no  experience  of  it,  does  not  know  the  value  ;  but  the 
value  of  the  learned  man's  secret  is  ridiculously  least 
This,  I  say,  is  the  very  glory  and  marvel  of  the  religion 
of  the  true  Israel,  and  what  makes  this  religion,  as  Jesus 
called  it,  '  the  good  news  to  the  poor  ; '  that  it  covers 
nearly  the  whole  of  life,  and  yet  is  so  simple.— Zi/era/ure 
and  Dosma. 


"ii' 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  TRUTH. 


When  Jesus  was  going  away,  and  his  disciples  were  to 
be  thrown  on  themselves  and  left  to  use  his  method 


The  Spirit  of  Tritih.  2'] 2, 

of  inwardness  more  deeply  and  thoroughly,  not  having 
him  to  go  to, — then  they  would  find,  he  said,  a  new  power 
come  to  their  help  ;  a  power  of  insight  such  as  they  had 
never  had  before,  and  which  was  none  of  their  mak- 
ing, but  came  from  God  as  Jesus  did,  and  said  nothing 
of  itself,  but  only  what  God  said  or  Jesus  said  ;  a  '  Para- 
clete,' or  reinforcement  working  in  aid  of  God  and  Jesus  : 
even  the  Spirit  of  Truth.  While  Jesus  was  with  them, 
the  disciples  had  lived  in  contact  with  aletheia,  or  reality; 
and  they  were  promised  now  an  intuition  of  reality 
within  themselves. 

Now,  will  it  be  believed,  that  the  Athanasian  Creed, 
and  our  bishops,  and  the  clergymen  who  write  to  the 
'Guardian,'  and  dogmatic  theology  in  general,  should 
have  imagined  that  Jesus  Christ  here  meant  to  convey 
to  us  the  '  blessed  doctrine '  that  this  Spirit  of  truth, 
too,  '  is  a  Person  '  ?  The  force  of  metaphysical  talent 
out-running  literary  experience  could  really,  we  say, 
no  farther  go  !  The  Muse,  who  visited  Hesiod  when 
he  was  tending  his  sheep  on  the  side  of  Helicon,  and 
'  breathed  into  him  a  divine  voice,  and  taught  him 
the  things  to  come  and  the  former  things,'  might  every 
bit  as  well  be  made,  with  much  display  of  metaphysical 
apparatus,  'a  Person.'  The  influence  which  visited 
Hesiod  was  a  real  one, — that  is  as  much  metaphysics  as 
we  can  without  error,  in  a  case  of  this  sort,  apply.  Who- 
ever applies  more,  falls  into  absurdity. 

T 


2  74  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


The  spiritual  visitant,  indeed,  which  rejoiced  the  wise 
poet  of  Ascra,  was  not  the  Paraclete  of  Jesus.  No,  it  was 
the  Muse  of  art  and  science,  the  Muse  of  the  gifted  few, 
the  Muse  who  brings  to  the  ingenious  and  learned  among 
mankind  '  a  forgetfulness,'  as  Hesiod  sings,  '  of  evils  and 
a  truce  from  cares.'  The  Paraclete  that  Jesus  promised, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  the  Muse  of  righteousness  ;  the 
Muse  of  the  work-day,  care-crossed,  toil-stained  milHons 
of  men, — the  Muse  of  humanity.  To  all  who  live,  for 
all  that  concerns  three-fourths  of  life,  this  divine  Muse 
offers  'a  forgetfulness  of  evils  and  a  truce  from  cares.' 
That  is  why  this  Muse  is  far  more  real,  and  far  greater, 
than  the  Muse  of  Hesiod  ;  not  from  any  metaphysical 
personality. — Literature  and  Dogma, 

ST.    PAUL  AND   THE   'NOT  OURSELVES: 

The  element  in  which  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being,  which  stretches  around  and  beyond  the  strictly 
moral  element  in  us,  around  and  beyond  the  finite  sphere 
of  what  is  originated,  measured,  and  controlled  by  our 
own  understanding  and  will, — this  infinite  element  is 
very  present  to  Paul's  thoughts,  and  makes  a  profound 
impression  on  them.  By  this  element  we  are  receptive 
and  influenced,  not  originative  and  influencing  ;  now,  we 
all  of  us  receive  far  more  than  we  originate.  Our  plea- 
sure from  a  spring  day  we  do  not  make  ;  our  pleasure, 
even,  fronri  an  approving  conscience  we  do  not  make. 


S^.  Paul  and  the  '  Not  Ourselves!     275 

And  yet  we  feel  that  both  the  one  pleasure  and  the  other 
can,  and  often  do,  work  with  us  in  a  wonderful  way  for 
our  good.  So  we  get  the  thought  of  an  impulsion  out- 
side ourselves  which  is  at  once  awful  and  beneficent. 
'  No  man,' as  the  Hebrew  psalm  says,  'hath  quickened 
his  own  soul.'  'I  know,'  says  Jeremiah,  '  that  the  way 
of  man  is  not  in  himself ;  it  is  not  in  man  that  walketh 
to  direct  his  steps.'  Most  true  and  natural  is  this  feel- 
ing ;  and  the  greater  men  are,  the  more  natural  is  this 
feeling  to  them.  Great  men  like  Sylla  and  Napoleon 
have  loved  to  attribute  their  success  to  their  fortune,  their 
star  ;  religious  great  men  have  loved  to  say  that  their 
sufficiency  was  of  God.  But  through  every  great  spirit 
runs  a  train  of  feeling  of  this  sort ;  and  the  power  and 
depth,  which  there  undoubtedly  is  in  Calvinism,  comes 
from  Calvinism's  being  overwhelmed  by  it.  Paul  is  not, 
like  Calvinism,  overwhelmed  by  it  ;  but  it  is  always 
before  his  mind  and  strongly  agitates  his  thoughts.  The 
voluntary,  rational,  and  human  world,  of  righteousness, 
moral  choice,  effort,  filled  a  large  place  in  his  spirit. 
But  the  necessary,  mystical,  and  divine  world,  of  influence, 
sympathy,  emotion,  filled  an  even  larger  ;  and  he  could 
pass  naturally  from  the  one  world  to  the  other.  The 
presence  in  Paul  of  this  twofold  feelmg  acted  irresistibly 
upon  his  doctrine.  What  he  calls  '  the  power  that  worketh 
in  us,'  and  that  produces  results  transcending  all  our 
expectations  and  calculations,  he  instinctively  sought  to 

T2 


276  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


combine  with  our  personal  agencies  of  reason  and  con- 
science.— St.  Paul  and  Protestantism. 

THE  PAULINE   'NECROSIS: 

It  is  impossible  to  be  in  presence  of  the  Pauline  concep- 
tion of  faith,  without  remarking  on  the  incomparable 
power  of  edification  which  it  contains.  It  is  at  once 
mystical  and  rational ;  and  it  enlists  in  its  service  the 
best  forces  of  both  worlds, — the  world  of  reason  and 
morals,  and  the  world  of  sympathy  and  emotion.  The 
world  of  reason  and  duty  has  an  excellent  clue  to  action, 
but  wants  motive-power  ;  the  world  of  sympathy  and 
influence  has  an  irresistible  force  of  motive-power,  but 
wants  a  clue  for  directing  its  exertion.  The  danger  of 
the  one  world  is  weariness  in  well-doing  ;  the  danger 
of  the  other  is  sterile  raptures  and  immoral  fanaticism. 
Paul  takes  from  both  worlds  what  can  help  him,  and 
leaves  what  cannot.  The  elemental  power  of  sympathy 
and  emotion  in  us,  a  power  which  extends  beyond  the 
limits  of  our  own  will  and  conscious  activity,  which  we 
cannot  measure  and  control,  and  which  in  each  of  us  dif- 
fers immensely  in  force,  volume,  and  mode  of  manifesta- 
tion, he  calls  into  full  play,  and  sets  it  to  work  with  all  its 
strength  and  in  all  its  variety.  But  one  unalterable  object 
is  assigned  by  him  to  this  power ;  to  die  with  Christ  to 
the  law  of  the  flesh,  to  live  with  Christ  to  the  law  of  the 
mitid. 


The  Pmtlinc  'Necrosis!  277 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  ttecrosts^^ — Paul's  central 
doctrine,  and  the  doctrine  which  makes  his  profoundness 
and  originality. — St.  Paul  and  Protestantism. 

PREDESTINA  TION. 

We  have  seen  how  strong  was  Paul's  consciousness  of  that 
power,  not  ourselves,  in  which  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being.  The  sense  of  life,  peace,  and  joy,  which 
comes  through  identification  with  Christ,  brings  with  it  a 
deep  and  grateful  consciousness  that  this  sense  is  none  of 
our  own  getting  and  making.  No,  it  is  grace,  it  is  the 
free  gift  of  God,  who  gives  abundantly  beyond  all  that  we 
ask  or  think,  and  calls  things,  that  are  not  as  though  they 
were.  '  It  is  not  of  him  that  willeth  or  of  him  that  runneth, 
but  of  God  that  showeth  mercy.'  As  moral  agents,  for 
whom  alone  exist  all  the  predicaments  of  merit  and  de- 
merit, praise  and  blame,  effort  and  failure,  vice  and  virtue, 
we  are  impotent  and  lost  ; — we  are  saved  through  that  in 
us  which  is  passive  and  involuntary ;  we  are  saved  through 
our  affections;  it  is  by  an  influence.,  and  the  emotion  from 
it,  that  we  are  saved  !  Well  might  Paul  cry  out,  as  this 
mystical  but  profound  and  beneficent  conception  filled 
his  soul  :  '  All  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that 
love  God,  to  them  who  are  the  called  according  to  his 
purpose.'  Well  might  he  say,  in  the  gratitude  which 
cannot  find  words  enough  to  express  its  sense  of  bound- 

'    II  Cor.,  iv.,    10. 


278  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

less  favour,  that  those  who  reached  peace  with  God 
through  identification  with  Christ  were  vessels  of  mercy, 
marked  from  endless  ages  ;  that  they  had  been  foreknown, 
predestinated,  called,  justified,  glorified. — St  Paid  and 
Protestantism. 

A  TONEMENT. 

The  substantial  basis  of  the  notion  of  atonement,  so  far 
as  we  ourselves  are  concerned,  is  the  bitter  experience 
that  the  habit  of  wrong-doing,  of  blindly  obeying  selfish 
impulse,  so  affects  our  temper  and  powers,  that  to  with- 
stand selfish  impulse,  to  do  right,  when  the  sense  of  right 
awakens  in  us,  requires  an  effort  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  actual  present  emergency.  We  have  not  only  the 
difficulty  of  the  present  act  in  itself,  we  have  the  resistance 
of  all  our  past.  Fire  and  the  knife,  cautery  and  amputa- 
tion, are  often  necessary  in  order  to  induce  a  vital  action, 
which,  if  it  were  not  for  our  corrupting  past,  we  might 
have  obtained  from  the  natural  healthful  vigour  of  our 
moral  organs.  This  is  the  real  basis  of  our  personal  sense 
of  the  need  of  expiating,  and  thus  it  is  that  man  expiates. 
Not  so  the  Just,  who  is  man's  ideal.  He  has  no  indu- 
rated habit  of  wrong,  no  perverse  temper,  no  enfeebled 
powers,  no  resisting  past,  no  spiritual  organs  gangrened, 
no  need  of  the  knife  and  fire  ;  smoothly  and  inevitably 
he  follows  the  eternal  order,  and  hereto  belongs  happi- 
ness.    What  sins,  then,  has  the  just  to  expiate  ? — onrs. 


Atonement.  279 


In  truth,  men's  habitual  unrighteousness,  their  hard  and 
careless  breaking  of  the  moral  law,  do  so  tend  to  reduce 
and  impair  the  standard  of  goodness,  that,  in'  order  to 
keep  this  standard  pure  and  unimpaired,  the  righteous 
must  actually  labour  and  suffer  far  more  than  would  be 
necessary  if  men  were  better.     In  the  first  place,  he  has 
to  undergo  our  hatred  and  persecution  for  his  justice. 
In  the  Second  place,  he  has  to  make  up  for  the  harm 
caused  by  our  continual  shortcomings,  to  step  between 
us  foolish  transgressors  and  the  destructive  natural  con- 
sequences of  our  transgression,  and,  by  a  superhuman 
example,  a  spending  himself  without  stint,  a  more  than 
mortal  scale  of  justice  and  purity,  to  save  the  ideal  of 
human   life   and   conduct   from   the   deterioration  with 
which  men's  ordinary  practice  threatens  it.     In  this  way 
Jesus  Christ  truly  '  was  sacrificed  as  a  blameless  lamb  to 
redeem  us  from  the  vain  conversation  which  had  become 
our  second  nature  ; '  in  this  way,  '  he  was  made  to  be  sin 
for  us,  who  knew  no  sin.'      Such,  according  to  that  true 
and  profound  perception  of  the  import  of  Christ's  suffer- 
ings, which,  in  all  St.  Paul's  writings,  and  in  the  inestim- 
able First  Episde  of  St.  Peter,  is  presented  to  us,  is  the 
atonement  of  Christ. — St.  Paul  and  Protestantism. 


2  8o  Philosophy  ajid  Religion. 

JOHN  WESLEY. 

Wesm;y,  with  his  genius  for  godliness,  struggled  all  his 
life  for  some  deeper  and  more  edifying  account  of  that 
faith,  which  he  felt  working  wonders  in  his  own  soul,  than 
that  it  was  a  hearty  consent  to  the  covenant  of  grace  and 
an  acceptance  of  the  benefit  of  Christ's  imputed  righteous- 
ness. Yet  this  amiable  and  gracious  spirit,  but  intel- 
lectually slight  and  shallow  compared  to  Paul,  beat  his 
wings  in  vain.  Paul,  nevertheless,  had  solved  the  pro- 
blem for  him,  if  only  he  could  have  had  eyes  to  see  Paul's 
solution. — St  Paul  and  Protestantism. 

ST.    PAUL   AND   THE  PURITANS. 

Paul's  figures  our  Puritans  have  taken  literally,  while  for 
his  central  idea  they  have  substituted  another  which  is 
not  his.  And  his  central  idea  they  have  turned  into  a 
figure,  and  have  let  it  almost  disappear  out  of  their  mind. 
His  essential  idea  lost,  his  figures  misused,  an  idea  essen- 
tially not  his  substituted  for  his, — the  unedifying  patch- 
work thus  made,  Puritanism  has  stamped  with  Paul's 
name,  and  called  the  gospel.  It  thunders  at  Romanism  for 
not  preaching  it,  it  casts  off  Anglicanism  for  not  setting 
it  forth  alone  and  unreservedly,  it  founds  organisations  of 
its  own  to  give  full  effect  to  it ;  these  organisations  guide 
politics,  govern  statesmen,  destroy  institutions  ; — and  they 
are  based  upon  a  blunder  ! 


S^.  Paul  and  the  Puritans.  281 


It  is  to  Protestantism,  and  to  this  its  Puritan  gospel, 
that  the  reproaches  thrown  on  St.  Paul,  for  sophisticating 
religion  of  the  heart  into  theories  of  the  head  about 
election  and  justification,  rightly  attach.  St.  Paul  him- 
self begins  with  seeking  righteousness  and  ends  with 
finding  it  ;  from  first  to  last,  the  practical  religious  sense 
never  deserts  him.  If  he  could  have  seen  and  heard  our 
preachers  of  predestination  and  justification,  they  are  just 
the  people  he  would  have  called  '  diseased  about  questions 
and  word-battlings.'  He  would  have  told  Puritanism 
that  every  Sunday,  when  in  all  its  countless  chapels  it 
reads  him  and  preaches  from  him,  the  veil  is  upon  its 
heart.  The  moment  it  reads  him  right,  a  veil  will  seem 
to  be  taken  away  from  its  heart  ;  it  will  feel  as  though 
scales  were  fallen  from  its  eyes. — St.  Paul  and  Pro- 
testantistn, 

SAN  PAOLO  FUORI  LE  MURA. 

Paul  died,  and  men's  familiar  fancies  of  bargain  and  ap- 
peasement, from  which,  by  a  prodigy  of  religious  insight, 
he  had  been  able  to  disengage  the  death  of  Jesus, 
fastened  on  it  and  made  it  their  own.  Back  rolled  over 
the  human  soul  the  mist  which  the  fires  of  Paul's  spiritual 
genius  had  dispersed  for  a  few  short  years.  The  mind  of 
the  whole  world  was  imbrued  in  the  idea  of  blood,  and 
only  through  the  false  idea  of  sacrifice  did  men  reach 
Paul's  true  one.     Paul's   idea  of  dying  with  Christ  the 


282  PJiilosophy  and  Religion. 

'  Imitation  '  elevates  more  conspicuously  than  any  Protest- 
ant treatise  elevates  it  ;  but  it  elevates  it  environed  and 
dominated  by  the  idea  of  appeasement ; — of  the  magni- 
fied and  non-natural  man  in  PTeaven,  wrath-filled  and 
blood-exacting  ;  of  the  human  victim  adding  his  piacular 
sufferings  to  those  of  the  divine.  Meanwhile  another 
danger  was  preparing.  Gifted  men  had  brought  to  the 
study  of  St.  Paul  the  habits  of  the  Greek  and  Roman 
schools,  and  philosophised  where  Paul  Orientalised. 
Augustine,  a  great  genius,  who  can  doubt  it  ? — nay  a 
great  religious  genius,  but  unlike  Paul  in  this,  and  inferior 
to  him,  that  he  confused  the  boundaries  of  metaphysics 
and  religion,  which  Paul  never  did, — Augustine  set  the 
example  of  finding  in  Paul's  eastern  speech,  just  as  it 
stood,  the  formal  propositions  of  western  dialectics. 
Last  came  the  interpreter  in  whose  slowly  relaxing  grasp 
we  still  lie, — the  heavy-handed  Protestant  Philistine. 
Sincere,  gross  of  perception,  prosaic,  he  saw  in  Paul's 
mystical  idea  of  man's  investiture  with  the  righteousness 
of  God  nothing  but  a  strict  legal  transaction,  and  re- 
served all  his  imagination  for  Hell  and  the  New  Jeru- 
salem and  his  foretaste  of  them.  A  so-called  Pauline 
doctrine  was  in  all  men's  mouths,  but  the  ideas  of  the  true 
Paul  lay  lost  and  buried. 

Every  one  who  has  been  at  Rome  has  been  taken  to 
see  the  Church  of  St.  Paul,  rebuilt  after  a  destruction  by 
fire  some  forty  years  ago.     The  church  stands  a  mile  or 


San  Paolo  Fiwri  le  Mura.  283 


two  out  of  the  city,  on  the  way  to  Ostia  and  the  desert. 
The  interior  has  all  the  costly  magnificence  of  Italian 
churches  ;  on  the  ceiling   is  written  in   gilded   letters  : 
'■Doctor  Gentium.''     Gold  glitters  and  marbles  gleam,  but 
man  and  his  movement  are  not  there.     The  traveller  has 
left  at  a  distance  \}cv&fumum  et  opes  strepitiimque  Roina  ; 
around   him   reigns  solitude.     There  is  Paul,  with  the 
mystery  which  was  hidden  from  ages  and  from  genera- 
tions, which  was  uncovered  by  him  for  some  half  score 
years,  and  which  then  was  buried  with  him  in  his  grave  ! 
Not  in  our  day  will  he  re-live,  with  his  incessant  eifort  to 
find  a  moral  side  for  miracle,  with  his  incessant  effort  to 
make  the  intellect  follow  and  secure  all  the  workings  of 
the  religious  perception.     Of  those  who  care  for  religion, 
the  multitude  of  us  want  the  materialism  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse ;  the  few  want  a  vague  religiosity.     Science,  which 
more  and  more  teaches  us  to  find  in  the  unapparent  the 
real,  will  gradually  serve  to  conquer  the  materialism  of 
popular  religion.     The  friends  of  vague   religiosity,  on 
the  other  hand,  will  be  more  and  more  taught  by  expe- 
rience that  a  theology,  a  scientific  appreciation  of  the 
facts  of  religion,  is  wanted  for  religion  ;  but  a  theology 
which  is  a  true  theology,  not  a  false.     Both  these  in- 
fluences will  work  for  Paul's  re-emergence.     The  doctrine 
of  Paul  will  arise  out  of  the  tomb  where  for  centuries  it 
has  lain  buried.     It  will  edify  the  church  of  the  future  ; 
it   will   have   the   consent   of  happier  generations,   the 


284  PJiilosophy  and  Religion. 

applause  of  less  superstitious  ages.  All  will  be  too  little, 
to  pay  the  debt  which  the  church  of  God  owes  to  this 
'least  of  the  apostles,  who  was  not  fit  to  be  called  an 
apostle,  because  he  persecuted  the  church  of  God.' — 
St.  Paul  and  Protestantism. 

THE  BRIDGE    WHICH  CARRIES  US  OVER. 

The  method  and  the  secret  of  Jesus  have  been  always 
prized.  The  Catholic  Church  from  the  first  held  aloft 
the  secret  of  Jesus  ;  the  monastic  orders  were  founded, 
we  may  say,  in  homage  to  it.  And  from  time  to  time, 
through  the  course  of  ages,  there  have  arisen  men  who 
threw  themselves  on  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus  with 
extraordinary  force,  with  intuitive  sense  that  here  was 
salvation  ;  and  who  really  cared  for  nothing  else,  though 
ecclesiastical  dogma,  too,  they  professed  to  believe,  and 
sincerely  thought  they  did  believe, — but  their  heart  was 
elsewhere.  These  are  they  who  '  received  the  kingdom 
of  God  as  a  little  child,'  who  perceived  how  simple  a  thing 
Christianity  was,  though  so  inexhaustible,  and  who  are 
therefore  '  the  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  God.'  And  they, 
not  the  theological  doctors,  are  the  true  lights  of  the 
Christian  Church  ;  not  Augustine,  Luther,  Bossuet,  Butler, 
but  the  nameless  author  of  the  '  Imitation,'  but  Tauler, 
but  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  Wilson  of  Sodor  and  Man.  Yet 
not  only  these  men,  but  the  whole  body  of  Christian 
churches  and  sects  always,  have  all  at  least  professed  the 


The  Bridge  which  Carries  us  Over.    285 

method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  and  to  some  extent  used 
them.  And  whenever  these  were  used,  they  have  borne 
their  natural  fruits  of  joy  and  life  ;  and  this  joy  and  this 
life  have  been  taken  to  flow  from  the  ecclesiastical  dogma 
held  along  with  them,  and  to  sanction  and  prove  it.  And 
people,  eager  to  praise  the  bridge  which  carried  them 
over  from  death  to  life,  have  taken  this  dogma  for  the 
bridge,  or  part  of  the  bridge,  that  carried  them  over,  and 
have  eagerly  praised  it.  Thus  religion  has  been  made  to 
stand  on  its  apex  instead  of  its  base.  Righteousness  is 
supported  on  ecclesiastical  dogma,  instead  of  ecclesias- 
tical dogma  being  supported  on  righteousness. — Literature 
and  Dogma. 

CATHOLICISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 

Catholicism,  we  have  said,  laid  hold  on  the  '  secret '  of 
Jesus,  and  strenuously,  however  blindly,  employed  it  ; 
this  is  the  grandeur  and  the  glory  of  Catholicism.  In 
like  .  manner  Protestantism  laid  hold  on  his  'method,' 
and  strenuously,  however  blindly,  employed  it  ;  and 
herein  is  the  greatness  of  Protestantism.  The  prelimi- 
nary labour  of  inwardness  and  sincerity  in  the  con- 
science of  each  individual  man,  which  was  the  method 
of  Jesus  and  the  indispensable  discipline  for  learning 
to  employ  his  secret  aright,  had  fallen  too  much  out 
of  view  ;  obedience  had  in  a  manner  superseded  it.  Pro^ 
testantism  drew   it  into   light    and   prominence  again  ; 


286  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

was  even,  one  may  say,  over-absorbed  by  it,  so  as  to 
leave  too  much  out  of  view  the  'secret.'  This,  if  one 
would  be  just  both  to  Catholicism  and  to  Protestantism, 
is  the  thing  to  bear  in  mind  : — Protestantism  had  hold 
of  Jesus  Christ's  method  of  inwardness  and  sincerity, 
Catholicism  had  hold  of  his  secret  of  self-renouncement. 
The  chief  word  with  Protestantism  is  the  word  of  the 
method  :  repentance,  conversion  ;  the  chief  word  with 
Catholicism  is  the  word  of  the  secret :  peace,  joy. 

And  since,  though  the  method  and  the  secret  are 
equally  indispensable,  the  secret  may  be  said  to  have  in 
it  more  of  practice  and  conduct,  Catholicism  may  claim 
perhaps  to  have  more  of  religion.  On  the  other  hand, 
Protestantism  has  more  light ;  and,  as  the  method  of 
inwardness  and  sincerity,  once  gained,  is  of  general 
application,  and  a  power  for  all  the  purposes  of  life, 
Protestantism,  we  can  see,  has  been  accompanied  by 
most  prosperity.  And  here  is  the  answer  to  Mr.  Buckle's 
famous  parallel  between  Spain  and  Scotland,  that  parallel 
which  everyone  feels  to  be  a  sophism.  Scotland  has 
had,  to  make  her  different  from  Spain,  the  '  method ' 
of  Jesus  ;  and  though,  in  theology,  Scotland  may  have 
turned  it  to  no  great  account,  she  has  found  her  account 
in  it  in  almost  everything  else.  Catholicism,  again,  has 
had,  perhaps,  most  happiness.  When  one  thinks  of  the 
bitter  and  contentious  temper  of  Puritanism, — temper 
being,  nevertheless,  such  a  vast  part  of  conduct, — and  then 


Catholicism  and  Protestantism.        287 

thinks  of  St.  Theresa  and  her  sweetness,  her  never-sleeping 
hatred  of  'detraction,'  one  is  tempted  ahnost  to  say,  that 
there  was  more  of  Jesus  in  St.  Theresa's  httle  finger  than 
in  John  Knox's  whole  body.  Protestantism  has  the 
method  of  Jesus  with  his  secret  too  much  left  out  of  mind  ; 
Catholicism  has  his  secret  with  his  method  too  much  left 
out  of  mind.  Neither  has  his  unerring  balance,  his  in- 
tuition, his  sweet  reasonableness.  But  both  have  hold  of  a 
great  truth,  and  get  from  it  a  great  power. 

And  many   of  the   reproaches    cast  by   one  on  the 
other  are  idle.     If  Catholicism  is  reproached  with  being 
indifferent  to  much  that  is    called    civilisation,  it   must 
be  answered  :  So  was  Jesus.     If  Protestantism,  with  its 
private  judgment,  is  accused  of  opening  a  wide  field  for 
individual   fancies  and  mistakes,  it  must  be  answered  : 
So  did  Jesus  when  he  introduced  his  method.     Private 
judgment,    '  the  fundaynental  and  insensate   doctrine   oj 
Protestantism,'  as  Joseph  de  Maistre  calls  it,  is  in  truth 
but   the    necessary    method,    the    eternally    incumbent 
duty,  imposed  by  Jesus  himself,  when  he  said  :  'Judge 
not  according  to  the   appearance,  but  judge  righteous 
judgment'     'Judge  r/^/;/^;?//^  judgment '  is,  however,  the 
duty  imposed  ;   and   the   duty  is   not,    whatever   many 
Protestants  may  seem  to  think,  fulfilled  if  the  judgment 
be  wrong.     But  the  duty  of  inwardly  judging  is  the  very 
entrance  into  the  way  and  walk  of  Jesus. — Literature  and 
Dogma. 


288  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


CRITICISM  WITHIN  THE    CHURCH. 

The  Christian  religion  has  practice  for  its  great  end 
and  aim  ;  but  it  raises,  as  any  one  can  see,  and  as 
Church-history  proves,  numerous  and  great  questions  of 
philosophy  and  of  scientific  criticism.  Well,  for  the  true 
elucidation  of  such  questions,  and  for  their  final  solution, 
time  and  favourable  developing  conditions  are  confessedly 
necessary.  From  the  end  of  the  apostolic  age  and  of  the 
great  fontal  burst  of  Christianity  down  to  the  present 
time,  have  such  conditions  ever  existed,  in  the  Christian 
communities,  for  determining  adequately  the  questions 
of  philosophy  and  scientific  criticism  which  the  Christian 
religion  starts  ?  God^  creation^  will,  evil,  propitiation.^ 
immortality, — these  terms  and  many  more  of  the  same 
kind,  however  much  they  might  in  the  Bible  be  used  in  a 
concrete  and  practical  manner,  yet  plainly  had  in  them- 
selves a  provocation  to  abstract  thought,  carried  with  them 
the  occasions  of  a  criticism  and  a  philosophy,  which  must 
sooner  or  later  make  its  appearance  in  the  Church.  It 
did  make  its  appearance,  and  the  question  is  whether  it 
has  ever  yet  appeared  there  under  conditions  favourable 
to  its  true  development.  Surely  this  is  best  elucidated 
by  considering  whether  questions  of  criticism  and  philo- 
sophy, in  general,  ever  had  one  of  their  happy  moments, 
their  times  for  successful  development,  in  the  early  and 
middle  ages  of  Christendom  at  all,  or  have  had  one  of 


Criticism  within  the  Church.  289 

them  in  the  Christian  churahes,  as  such,  since.  All  these 
questions  hang  together,  and  the  time  that  is  improper 
for  solving  one  sort  of  them  truly,  is  improper  for  solving 
the  others. 

Well,  surely,  historic  criticism,  criticism  of  style,  criti- 
cism of  nature,  no  one  would  go  to  the  early  or  middle 
ages  of  the  Church  for  illumination  on  these  matters. 
How  then  should  those  ages  develop  successfully  a  philo- 
sophy of  theology,  or  in  other  words,  a  criticism  of  physics 
and  metaphysics,  which  involves  the  three  other  criticisms 
and  more  besides  ?  Church-theology  is  an  elaborate 
attempt  at  a  philosophy  of  theology,  at  a  philosophical 
criticism.  In  Greece,  before  Christianity  appeared,  there 
had  been  a  favouring  period  for  the  development  of  such 
a  criticism  ;  a  considerable  movement  of  it  took  place, 
and  considerable  results  were  reached.  When  Chris- 
tianity began,  this  movement  was  in  decadence  ;  it  de- 
clined more  and  more  till  it  died  quite  out  ;  it  revived 
very  slowly,  and  as  it  waxed,  the  mediaeval  Church  waned. 
The  doctrine  of  universals  is  a  question  of  philosophy 
discussed  in  Greece,  and  re-discussed  in  the  middle  ages. 
Whatever  light  this  doctrine  receives  from  Plato's  treat- 
rnent  of  it,  or  Aristotle's,  in  whatever  state  they  left  it, 
will  any  one  .say  that  the  Nominalists  and  Realists  brought 
any  more  light  to  it,  that  they  developed  it  in  any  way,  or 
could  develop  it  ?  For  the  same  reason,  St.  Augustine's 
criticism  of  God's  eternal  decrees,  original  sin,  and  justi- 

u 


290  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

fication,  the  criticism  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  on  them, 
the  decisions  of  the  Church  on  them,  are  of  necessity, 
and  from  the  very  nature  of  things,  inadequate,  because, 
being  philosophical  developments,  they  are  made  in  an 
age  when  the  forces  for  true  philosophical  development 
are  waning  or  wanting. 

So  when  Hooker  says  most  truly  :  '  Our  belief  in  the 
Trinity,  the  co-eternity  of  the  Son  of  God  with  his  Father, 
the  proceeding  of  the  Spirit  from  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
with  other  principal  points  the  necessity  whereof  is  by 
none  denied,  are  notwithstanding  in  Scripture  nowhere 
to  be  found  by  express  literal  mention,  only  deduced  they 
are  out  of  Scripture  by  collection  ; ' — when  Hooker  thus 
points  out,  what  is  undoubtedly  the  truth,  that  these 
Church-doctrines  are  developments,  we  may  add  this 
other  truth  equally  undoubted, — that,  being  philosophical 
developments,  they  are  developments  of  a  kind  which 
the  Church  has  never  yet  had  the  right  conditions  for 
making  adequately,  any  more  than  it  has  had  the  condi- 
tions for  developing  out  of  what  is  said  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis  a  true  philosophy  of  nature,  or  out  of  what  is 
said  in  the  Book  of  Daniel,  a  true  philosophy  of  history. 
It  matters  nothing  whether  the  scientific  truth  was  there, 
and  the  problem  was  to  extract  it  ;  or  not  there,  and  the 
problem  was  to  understand  why  it  was  not  there,  and  the 
relation  borne  by  what  was  there  to  the  scientific  truth. 
The  Church  had  no  means  of  solving  either  the  one  pro- 


Criticisiu  within  the  Church.  291 

blem  or  the  other.  And  this  from  no  fault  at  all  of  the 
Church,  but  for  the  same  reason  that  she  was  unfitted 
to  solve  a  difficulty  in  Aristotle's  'Physics'  or  Plato's 
'Timeeus,'  and  to  determine  the  historical  value  of  Hero- 
dotus or  Livy  ;  simply  from  the  natural  operation  of  the 
law  of  development,  which  for  success  in  philosophy  and 
criticism  requires  certain  conditions,  which  in  the  early 
and  mediaeval  Church  were  not  to  be  found. 

And  when  the  movement  of  philosophy  and  criticism 
came  with  the  Renascence,  this  movement  was  almost 
entirely  outside  the  Churches,  whether  Catholic  or  Pro- 
testant, and  not  inside  them.  It  worked  in  men  like 
Descartes  and  Bacon,  and  not  in  men  like  Luther  and 
Calvin  ;  so  that  the  doctrine  of  these  two  eminent 
personages,  Luther  and  Calvin,  so  far  as  it  was  a  philo- 
sophical and  critical  development  from  Scripture,  had 
no  more  likelihood  of  being  an  adequate  development 
than  the  doctrine  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  And  so  it 
has  gone  on  to  this  day.  Philosophy  and  criticism  have 
become  a  great  power  in  the  world,  and  inevitably  tend 
to  alter  and  develop  Church-doctrine,  so  far  as  this 
doctrine  is,  as  to  a  great  extent  it  is,  philosophical  and 
critical.  Yet  the  seat  of  the  developing  force  is  not  in 
the  Church  itself,  but  elsewhere  ;  its  influences  filter 
strugglingly  into  the  Church,  and  the  Church  slowly 
absorbs  and  incorporates  them.  And  whatever  hinders 
their  filtering  in  and  becoming  incorporated,  hinders  truth 

u  2 


292  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


and  the  natural  progress  of  things. — St,  Paul  and  Pro- 
testantism. 

'  SEcunus  judicat: 

Cardinal  Newman  has  told  us  what  an  impression  was 
once   made  upon  his  mind  by   the  sentence  :    Sea/n/s 
jiidkat  orbis  terraruni.     We  have  endeavoured  to  show, 
how,  for  matters  of  philosophical  judgment,  not  yet  settled 
but  requiring  development  to  clear  them,  the  consent  of 
the  world,  at  a  time  when  this  clearing  development  can- 
not have  happened,  seems  to  carry  little  or  no  weight  at 
all  ;  indeed,  as  to  judgment  on  these  points,  we  should 
rather  be  inclined  to  lay  down  the  very  contrary  of  Car- 
dinal Newman's  affirmation,  and  to  say  :  Secnrus  delirat 
orbis  terrarum.     But  points  of  speculative  theology  being 
out  of  the  question,  and  the  practical  ground  and  purpose 
of  man's  religion  being  broadly  and   plainly  fixed,   we 
should  be  quite  disposed  to  concede  to  Cardinal  New- 
man, that  securus  colit  orbis  terrarum  ;— those  pursue  the 
purpose  of  worship  best,  who  pursue  it  together.     For 
unless  prevented  by  extraneous  causes,  they  manifestly 
tend,    as  the  history  of  the  Church's  growth  shows,  to 
pursue  it  together.— 6"/.  Paul  and  Protestantism. 

MORALITY  AND  RELIGION. 

Moral  rules,  apprehended  as  ideas  first,  and  then  rigor- 
ously followed  as  laws,  are,  and  must  be,  for  the  sage 


Morality  and  Religion.  293 

only.  The  mass  of  mankind  have  neither  force  of  intel- 
lect enough  to  apprehend  them  clearly  as  ideas,  nor  force 
of  character  enough  to  follow  them  strictly  as  laws.  The 
mass  of  mankind  can  be  carried  along  a  course  full  of 
hardship  for  the  natural  man,  can  be  borne  over  the 
thousand  impediments  of  the  narrow  way,  only  by  the 
tide  of  a  joyful  and  bounding  emotion.  It  is  impossible 
to  rise  from  reading  Epictetus  or  Marcus  Aurelius  without 
a  sense  of  constraint  and  melancholy,  without  feeling 
that  the  burden  laid  upon  man  is  well-nigh  greater  than 
he  can  bear.  Honour  to  the  sages  who  have  felt  this, 
and  yet  have  borne  it  !  Yet,  even  for  the  sage,  this  sense 
of  labour  and  sorrow  in  his  march  towards  the  goal  con- 
stitutes a  relative  inferiority  ;  the  noblest  souls  of  what- 
ever creed,  the  pagan  Empedocles  as  well  as  the  Christian 
Paul,  have  insisted  on  the  necessity  of  an  inspiration,  a 
jo)^ul  emotion,  to  make  moral  action  perfect.  An  obscure 
indication  of  this  necessity  is  the  one  drop  of  truth  in  the 
ocean  of  verbiage  with  which  the  controversy  on  justifi- 
cation by  faith  has  flooded  the  world.  But,  for  the 
ordinary  man,  this  sense  of  labour  and  sorrow  constitutes 
an  absolute  disqualification  ;  it  paralyses  him  ;  under  the 
weight  of  it,  he  cannot  make  way  towards  the  goal  at  all. 
The  paramount  virtue  of  religion  is,  that  it  has  lighted  up 
morality  ;  that  it  has  supplied  the  emotion  and  inspira- 
tion needful  for  carrying  the  sage  along  the  narrow  way 
perfectly,  for  carrying  the  ordinary  man  along  it  at  all. 


294  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


Even  the  religions  with  most  dross  in  them  have  had 
something  of  this  virtue  ;  but  the  Christian  reUgion 
manifests  it  with  unexampled  splendour. — Essays  in 
Criticism. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND    THE  ANTONINES. 

The  Christianity  which  the  Antonines  aimed  at  repress- 
ing was,  in  their  conception  of  it,  something  philosophic^ 
ally  contemptible,  politically  subversive,  and  morally 
abominable.  As  men,  they  sincerely  regarded  it  much 
as  well-conditioned  people,  with  us,  regard  Mormonism  ; 
as  rulers,  they  regarded  it  much  as  Liberal  statesmen, 
with  us,  regard  the  Jesuits.  A  kind  of  Mormonism,  con- 
stituted as  a  vast  secret  society,  with  obscure  aims  of 
political  and  social  subversion,  was  what  Antoninus  Pius 
and  Marcus  Aurelius  believed  themselves  to  be  repress- 
ing when  they  punished  Christians.  The  early  Christian 
apologists  again  and  again  declare  to  us  under  what 
odious  imputations  the  Christians  lay,  how  general  was 
the  belief  that  these  imputations  were  well-grounded, 
how  sincere  was  the  horror  which  the  belief  inspired.. 
The  multitude,  convinced  that  the  Christians  were 
atheists  who  ate  human  flesh  and  thought  incest  no  crime, 
displayed  against  them  a  fury  so  passionate  as  to  embarrass 
and  alarm  their  rulers.  The  severe  expressions  of  Tacitus, 
exitiabilis  superstitio — odio  humani  generis  convicti,  show 
how  deeply  the  prejudices  of  the  multitude  imbued  the 


CJnHstianity  and  the  A  nton ines.       295 

educated  class  also.  One  asks  oneself  with  astonishment 
how  a  doctrine  so  benign  as  that  of  Jesus  Christ  can  have 
incurred  misrepresentation  so  monstrous.  The  inner  and 
moving  cause  of  the  misrepresentation  lay,  no  doubt,  in 
this, — that  Christianity  was  a  new  spirit  in  the  Roman 
world,  destined  to  act  in  that  world  as  its  dissolvent ;  and 
it  was  inevitable  that  Christianity  in  the  Roman  world, 
like  democracy  in  the  modern  world,  like  every  new  spirit 
with  a  similar  mission  assigned  to  it,  should  at  its  first 
appearance  occasion  an  instinctive  shrinking  and  repug- 
nance in  the  world  which  it  was  to  dissolve.  The  outer 
and  palpable  causes  of  the  misrepresentation  were,  for 
the  Roman  public  at  large,  the  confounding  of  the  Chris- 
tians with  the  Jews,  that  isolated,  fierce,  and  stubborn 
race,  whose  stubbornness,  fierceness,  and  isolation,  real 
as  they  were,  the  fancy  of  a  civilised  Roman  yet  further 
exaggerated  ;  the  atmosphere  of  mystery  and  novelty 
which  surrounded  the  Christian  rites  ;  the  very  simplicity 
of  Christian  theism.  For  the  Roman  statesman,  the 
cause  of  mistake  lay  in  that  character  of  secret  assem- 
blages which  the  meetings  of  the  Christian  community 
wore,  under  a  State-system  as  jealous  of  unauthorised 
associations  as  the  State-system  of  modern  France. 

A  Roman  of  Marcus  Aurelius's  time  and  position 
could  not  well  see  the  Christians  except  through  the  mist 
of  these  prejudices.  Seen  through  such  a  mist,  the 
Christians  appeared  with  a  thousand  faults  not  their  own  ; 


296  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

but  it  has  not  been  sufficiently  remarked  that  faults 
really  their  own  many  of  them  assuredly  appeared  with 
besides,  faults  especially  likely  to  strike  such  an  observer 
as  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  lo  confirm  him  in  the  prejudices 
of  his  race,  station,  and  rearing.  We  look  back  upon 
Christianity  after  it  has  proved  what  a  future  it  bore 
within  it,  and  for  us  the  sole  representatives  of  its  early 
struggles  are  the  pure  and  devoted  spirits  through  whom 
it  proved  this  ;  Marcus  Aurelius  saw  it  with  its  future  yet 
unshown,  and  with  the  tares  among  its  professed  progeny 
not  less  conspicuous  than  the  wheat.  Who  can  doubt 
that  among  the  professing  Christians  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, as  among  the  professing  Christians  of  the  nineteenth, 
there  was  plenty  of  folly,  plenty  of  rabid  nonsense,  plenty 
of  gross  fanaticism  ?  Who  will  even  venture  to  affirm,  that, 
separated  in  great  measure  from  the  intellect  and  civilisa- 
tion of  the  world  for  one  or  two  centuries,  Christianity, 
wonderful  as  have  been  its  fruits,  had  the  development 
perfectly  worthy  of  its  inestimable  germ  ?  Who  will 
venture  to  affirm,  that,  by  the  alliance  of  Christianity  with 
the  virtue  and  intelligence  of  men  like  the  Antonines, — 
of  the  best  product  of  Greek  and  Roman  civiUsation, 
while  Greek  and  Roman  civilisation  had  yet  life  and 
power, — Christianity  and  the  world,  as  well  as  the  Anto- 
nmes  themselves,  would  not  have  been  gainers  ?  That 
alliance  was  not  to  be.  The  Antonines  lived  and  died 
with  an  utter  misconception  of  Christianity  ;  Christianity 


Christianity  and  the  Antonines.       297 

grew  up  in  the  Catacombs,  not  on  the  Palatine.  And 
Marcus  Aurelius  incurs  no  grave  moral  reproach  by  having 
authorised  the  punishment  of  the  Christians  ;  he  does  not 
thereby  become  in  the  least  what  we  mean  by  a  persecutor. 
One  may  concede  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  see 
Christianity  as  it  really  was  ; — as  impossible  as  for  even 
the  moderate  and  sensible  Fleury  to  see  the  Antonines 
as  they  really  were  ; — one  may  concede  that  the  point  of 
view  from  which  Christianity  appeared  something  anti- 
civil  and  anti-social,  which  the  State  had  the  faculty  to 
judge  and  the  duty  to  suppress,  was  inevitably  his.  Still, 
however,  it  remains  true  that  this  sage,  who  made  per- 
fection his  aim  and  reason  his  law,  did  Christianity  an 
immense  injustice,  and  rested  in  an  idea  of  State-attributes 
which  was  illusive.  And  this  is,  in  truth,  characteristic 
of  Marcus  Aurelius, — that  he  is  blameless,  yet,  in  a  certain 
sense,  unfortunate  ;  in  his  character,  beautiful  as  it  is, 
there  is  something  melancholy,  circumscribed,  and  in- 
effectual.— Essays  in  Criticisjn. 

MARCUS  AURELIUS. 

Marcus  Aurelius  is  perhaps  the  most  beautiful  charac- 
ter in  history.  He  is  one  of  those  consoling  and  hope- 
inspiring  marks,  which  stand  for  ever  to  remind  our  weak 
and  easily  discouraged  race  how  high  human  goodness  and 
perseverance  have  once  been  carried,  and  may  be  carried 
again.     The  interest  of  mankind  is  peculiarly  attracted 


298  PJiilosophy  and  Religion. 

by  examples  of  signal  goodness  in  high  places  ;  for  that 
testimony  to  the  worth  of  goodness  is  the  most  striking, 
which  is  borne  by  those  to  whom  all  the  means  of  plea- 
sure and  self-indulgence  lay  open,  by  those  who  had  at 
their  command  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory 
of  them.     Marcus  Aurelius  was  the  ruler  of  the  grandest 
of  empires  ;  and  he  was  one  of  the  best  of  men.    Besid<^s 
him,  history  presents  one  or  two  other  sovereigns  eminent 
for  their  goodness,  such  as  Saint  Louis  or  Alfred.     But 
Marcus  Aurelius  has,  for  us  moderns,  this  great  superiority 
in  iriterest  over  Saint  Louis  or  Alfred,  that  he  lived  and 
acted  in  a  state  of  society  modern  by  its  essential  cha- 
racteristics, in  an  epoch  akin  to  our  own,  in  a  brilliant 
centre  of  civilisation.     Trajan  talks  of  '  our  enlightened 
age  '  just  as  glibly  as  the  '  Times  '  talks  of  it.     Marcus 
Aurelius  thus  becomes  for  us  a  man  like  ourselves,  a 
man  in  all  things  tempted  as  we  are.     Saint  Louis  in- 
habits an  atmosphere  of  mediaeval  Catholicism,  which  the 
man  of  the  nineteenth  century  may  admire  indeed,  may 
even  passionately  wish  to  inhabit,  but  which,  strive  as  he 
will,  he  cannot  really  inhabit.     Alfred  belongs  to  a  state 
of  society  (I  say  it  with  all  deference  to  the   '  Saturday 
Review '  critic  who  keeps  such  jealous  watch  over  the 
honour  of  our  Saxon  ancestors)  half  barbarous.     Neither 
Alfred  nor  Saint  Louis  can  be  morally  and  intellectually 
as  near  to  us  as  Marcus  Aurelius. 

The  record  of  the  outward  life  of  this  admirable  man 


Marnis  Aurelius.  299 


has  in  it  little  of  striking  incident.  He  was  born  at  Rome 
on  the  26th  of  April,  in  the  year  121  of  the  Christian  era. 
He  was  nephew  and  son-in-law  to  his  predecessor  on  the 
throne,  Antoninus  Pius.  When  Antoninus  died,  he  was 
forty  years  old,  but  from  the  time  of  his  earliest  manhood 
he  had  assisted  in  administering  public  affairs.  Then, 
after  his  uncle's  death  in  161,  for  nineteen  years  he 
reigned  as  emperor.  The  barbarians  were  pressing  on 
the  Roman  frontier,  and  a  great  part  of  Marcus  Aurelius 's 
nineteen  years  of  reign  was  passed  in  campaigning.  His 
absences  from  Rome  were  numerous  and  long.  We  hear 
of  him  in  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  Egypt,  Greece  ;  but,  above 
all,  in  the  countries  on  the  Danube,  where  the  war  with 
the  barbarians  was  going  on, — in  Austria,  Moravia,  Hun- 
gary. In  these  countries  much  of  his  Journal  seems  to 
have  been  written  ;  parts  of  it  are  dated  from  them  ;  and 
there,  a  few  weeks  before  his  fifty-ninth  birthday,  he  fell 
sick  and  died. '  The  record  of  him  on  which  his  fame 
chiefly  rests  is  the  record  of  his  inward  life, — his  '  Journal,' 
or  '  Commentaries,'  or  '  Meditations,'  or  '  ThoughtSj'  for 
by  all  these  names  has  the  work  been  called. 

Of  the  records  of  his  outward  life  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  is  that  which  the  first  book  of  this  work  sup- 
plies, where  he  gives  an  account  of  his  education,  recites 
the  names  of  those  to  whom  he  is  indebted  for  it,  and 
enumerates  his  obligations  to  each  of  them.  It  is  a  re- 
'  He  died  on  the  17th  of  March,  A.D.  180. 


300  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


freshing  and  consoling  picture,  a  priceless  treasure  for 
those,  who,  sick  of  the  '  wild  and  dreamlike  trade  of 
blood  and  guile,'  which  seems  to  be  nearly  the  whole  of 
what  history  has  to  offer  to  our  view,  seek  eagerly  for 
that  substratum  of  right  thinking  and  well  doing  which  in 
all  ages  must  surely  have  somewhere  existed,  for  without 
it  the  continued  life  of  humanity  would  have  been  impos- 
sible. '  From  my  mother  I  learnt  piety  and  beneficence, 
and  abstinence  not  only  from  evil  deeds  but  even  from 
evil  thoughts  ;  and  further,  simplicity  in  my  way  of  living, 
far  removed  from  the  habits  of  the  rich.'  Let  us  remem- 
ber that,  the  next  time  we  are  reading  the  sixth  satire  of 
Juvenal.  '  From  my  tutor  I  learnt '  (hear  it,  ye  tutors  of 
princes  !)  '  endurance  of  labour,  and  to  want  little,  and  to 
work  with  my  own  hands,  and  not  to  meddle  with  other 
people's  affairs,  and  not  to  be  ready  to  listen  to  slander.' 
The  vices  and  foibles  of  the  Greek  sophist  or  rhetorician, 
■ — the  Graculus  esuriens, — are  in  everybody's  mind  ;  but 
he  who  reads  Marcus  AureHus's  account  of  his  Greek 
teachers  and  masters,  will  understand  how  it  is  that,  in 
spite  of  the  vices  and  foibles  of  individual  GrcEcidi,  the 
education  of  the  human  race  owes  to  Greece  a  debt  which 
can  never  be  overrated.  Again,  the  vague  and  -colourless 
praise  of  history  leaves  on  the  mind  hardly  any  impres- 
sion of  Antoninus  Pius  :  it  is  only  from  the  private 
memoranda  of  his  nephew  that  we  learn  what  a  dis- 
ciplined, hard-working,  gentle,  wise,  virtuous  man  he  was  ; 


Mai'cus  Aurelitis.  301 


a  man  who,  perhaps,  interests  mankind  less  than  his  im- 
mortal nephew  only  because  he  has  left  in  writing  no 
record  of  his  inner  life, — caret  quia  vate  sacro. 

Of  the  outward  life  and  circumstances  of  Marcus 
Aurelius,  beyond  these  notices  which  he  has  himself 
supplied,  there  are  few  of  much  interest  and  importance. 
There  is  the  fine  anecdote  of  his  speech  when  he  heard 
of  the  assassination  of  the  revolted  Avidius  Cassius, 
against  whom  he  was  marching  ;  he  was  sorry,  he  said, 
to  be  deprived  of  the  pleasure  of  pardofiing  Jiim.  And 
there  are  one  or  two  more  anecdotes  of  him  which 
show  the  same  spirit.  But  the  great  record  for  the 
outward  life  of  a  man  who  has  left  such  a  record  of 
his  lofty  inward  aspirations  as  that  which  Marcus 
Aurelius  has  left,  is  the  clear  consenting  voice  of  all  his 
contemporaries, — high  and  low,  friend  and  enemy,  pagan 
and  Christian, — in  praise  of  his  sincerity,  purity,  justice, 
and  goodness.  The  world's  charity  does  not  err  on  the 
side  of  excess,  and  here  was  a  man  occupying  the  most 
conspicuous  station  in  the  world,  and  professing  the 
highest  possible  standard  of  conduct ; — yet  the  world 
was  obliged  to  declare  that  he  walked  worthily  of  his 
profession.  Long  after  his  death,  his  bust  was  to  be 
seen  in  the  houses  of  private  men  throughout  the  wide 
Roman  empire.  It  may  be  the  vulgar  part  of  human 
nature  which  busies  itself  with  the  semblance  and  doings 
of  living  sovereigns,   it  is  its  nobler  part  which  busies 


Philosophy  and  Religion. 


itself  with  those  of  the  dead  ;  these  busts  of  Marcus 
AureHus,  in  the  homes  of  Gaul,  Britain,  Spain,  and  Italy, 
bear  witness,  not  to  the  inmates'  frivolous  curiosity  about 
princes  and  palaces,  but  to  their  reverential  memory  of 
the  passage  of  a  great  man  upon  the  earth. — Essays  in 
Criticism. 

MARCUS  AURELIUS  AND   CHRISTIANITY. 

Marcus  Aurelius  remains  the  especial  friend  and  com- 
forter of  all  clear-headed  and  scrupulous,  yet  pure-hearted 
and  upward-striving  men,  in  those  ages  most  especially 
that  walk  by  sight,  not  by  faith,  but  have,  nevertheless, 
no  open  vision.  He  cannot  give  such  souls,  perhaps, 
all  they  yearn  for,  but  he  gives  them  much  ;  and  what 
he  gives  them,  they  can  receive. 

Yet  no,  it  is  not  for  what  he  thus  gives  them  that 
such  souls  love  him  most  !  it  is  rather  because  of  the 
emotion  which  lends  to  his  voice  so  touching  an  accent, 
it  is  because  he  too  yearns  as  they  do  for  something 
unattained  by  him.  What  an  affinity  for  Christianity 
had  this  persecutor  of  the  Christians  !  The  effusion  of 
Christianity,  its  relieving  tears,  its  happy  self-sacrifice, 
were  the  very  element,  one  feels,  for  which  his  soul 
longed ;  they  were  near  him,  they  brushed  him,  he 
touched  them,  he  passed  them  by.  One  feels,  too,  that 
the  Marcus  Aurelius  one  reads  must  still  have  remained, 
even   had  Christianity  been   fully  known  to  him,   in  a 


Marcus  Atirelms  and  Christianity.    303 

great  measure  himself;  he  would  have  been  no  Justin  ; — • 
but  how  would  Christianity  have  affected  him  ?  in  what 
measure  would  it  have  changed  him  ?  Granted  that  he 
might  have  found,  like  the  Aiogi  of  modern  times,  in 
the  most  beautiful  of  the  Gospels,  the  Gospel  which  has 
leavened  Christendom  most  powerfully,  the  Gospel  of 
St.  John,  too  much  Greek  metaphysics,  too  much  gnosis ; 
granted  that  this  Gospel  might  have  looked  too  like  what 
he  knew  already  to  be  a  total  surprise  to  him  :  what,  then, 
would  he  have  said  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  to 
the  twenty-sixth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew  ?  What  would 
have  become  of  his  notions  of  the  exitiabilis  stiperstitio, 
of  the  '  obstinacy  of  the  Christians  '  ?  Vain  question  ! 
yet  the  greatest  charm  of  Marcus  Aurelius  is  that  he 
makes  us  ask  it.  We  see  him  wise,  just,  self-governed, 
tender,  thankful,  blameless  ;  yet,  with  all  this,  agitated, 
stretching  out  his  arms  for  something  beyond,— /tv/^^v/- 
temqiie  manus  ripce.  ulterior  is  at7iore. — Essays  in  Cri- 
ticism. 

THE  IMAMS. 

Abnegation  and  mildness,  based  on  the  depth  of  the 
inner  life,  and  visited  by  unmerited  misfortune,  made  the 
power  of  the  first  and  famous  Imams,  Ali,  Hassan,  and 
Hussein,  over  the  popular  imagination.  'O  brother,' 
said  Hassan,  as  he  was  dying  of  poison,  to  Hussein,  who 
sought  to  find  out  and  punish  his  murderer,  '  O  brother, 


304  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

let  him  alone  till  he  and  I  meet  together  before  God  ! '  So 
his  father  All  had  stood  back  from  his  rights  instead  of 
clutching  at  them.  So  of  Hussein  himself  it  was  said  by 
his  successful  rival,  the  usurping  Caliph  Yezid  :  '  God 
loved  Hussein,  but  he  would  not  suffer  hi/n  to  attain  to 
anythhig.''  They  might  attain  to  nothing,  they  were  too 
pure,  these  great  ones  of  the  world  as  by  birth  they  were ; 
but  the  people,  which  itself  also  can  attain  to  so  little, 
loved  them  all  the  better  on  that  account,  loved  them  for 
their  abHegation  and  mildness,  felt  that  they  were  dear 
to  God,  that  God  loved  them,  and  that  they  and  their 
lives  filled  a  void  in  the  severe  religion  of  Mahomet. 
These  saintly  self-deniers,  these  resigned  sufferers,  who 
would  not  strive  nor  cry,  supplied  a  tender  and  pathetic 
side  in  Islam.  The  conquered  Persians,  a  more  mobile, 
more  impressionable,  and  gentler  race  than  their  concen  • 
trated,  narrow,  and  austere  Semitic  conquerors,  felt  the 
need  of  it  most,  and  gave  most  prominence  to  the  ideals 
which  satisfied  the  need  ;  but  in  Arabs  and  Turks  also, 
and  in  all  the  Mahometan  world,  Ali  and  his  sons  excite 
enthusiasm  and  affection.  Round  the  central  sufferer, 
Hussein,  has  come  to  group  itself  everything  which  is 
most  tender  and  touching.  His  person  brings  to  the 
Mussulman's  mind  the  most  human  side  of  Mahomet 
himself,  his  fondness  for  children,— for  Mahomet  had 
loved  to  nurse  the  little  Hussein  on  his  knee,  and  to 
show  him  from  the  pulpit  to  his  people.     The  Family  0/ 


7'he  Imams.  305 


the  Tent  is  full  of  women  and  children,  and  of  their  devo- 
tion and  sufferings, — blameless  and  saintly  women,  lovely 
and  innocent  children.  There,  too,  are  lovers  and  their 
story,  lovers  lit  with  the  beauty  and  the  love  of  youth ; 
all  follow  the  attraction  of  the  pure  and  resigned  Imam, 
all  die  for  him.  The  tender  pathos  from  all  these  flow3 
into  the  pathos  from  him  and  enhances  it,  until  finally 
there  arises  for  the  popular  imagination  an  immense 
ideal  of  mildness  and  self-sacrifice,  melting  and  over- 
powering the  soul. 

Even  for  us,  to  whom  almost  all  the  names  are 
strange,  whose  interest  in  the  places  and  persons  is  faint^ 
who  have  them  before  us  for  a  monient  to-day,  to  see 
them  again,  probably,  no  more  for  ever, — even  for  us,  un- 
less I  err  greatly,  the  pcwer  and  pathos  of  this  ideal  arc 
recognisable.  What  must  they  be  for  those  to  whom 
every  name  is  familiar,  and  calls  up  the  most  solemn  and 
cherished  associations ;  who  have  had  their  adoring  gaze 
fixed  all  their  lives  upon  this  exemplar  of  self-denial 
and  gentleness,  and  who  have  no  other  ? — Essays  in 
Criticism. 

SPINOZA. 

The  lonely  precursor  of  German  philosophy,  Spinoza  still 
shines,  while  the  light  of  his  successors  is  fading  away  ; 
they  had  celebrity,  Spinoza  has  fame.  Not  because  his 
peculiar  system  of  philosophy  has   had   more  adherents 

X 


o 


06  PJiilosophy  and  Religion. 


than  theirs  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  has  had  fewer.  But 
schools  of  philosophy  arise  and  fall  ;  their  bands  of 
adherents  inevitably  dwindle  ;  no  master  can  long  per- 
suade a  large  body  of  disciples  that  they  give  to  them- 
selves just  the  same  account  of  the  world  as  he  does  ;  it 
is  only  the  very  young  and  the  very  enthusiastic  who 
can  think  themselves  sure  that  they  possess  the  whole 
mind  of  Plato,  or  Spinoza,  or  Hegel,  at  all.  The  very 
mature  and  the  very  sober  can  even  hardly  believe  that 
these  philosophers  possessed  it  themselves  enough  to  put 
it  all  into  their  works,  and  to  let  us  know  entirely  how 
the  world  seemed  to  them.  What  a  remarkable  philo- 
sopher really  does  for  human  thought,  is  to  throw  into  cir- 
culation a  certain  number  of  new  and  striking  ideas  and 
expressions,  and  to  stimulate  with  them  the  thought  and 
imagination  of  his  century  or  of  after-times.  So  Spinoza 
has  made  his  distinction  between  adequate  and  inadequate 
ideas  a  current  notion  for  educated  Europe.  So  Hegel 
seized  a  single  pregnant  sentence  of  Heracleitus,  and  cast 
it,  with  a  thousand  striking  applications,  into  the  world 
of  modern  thought.  But  to  do  this  is  only  enough  to 
make  a  philosopher  noteworthy  ;  it  is  not  enough  to  make 
him  great.  To  be  great,  he  must  have  something  in  him 
which  can  influence  character,  which  is  edifying ;  he 
must,  in  short,  have  a  noble  and  lofty  character  himself, 
a  character, — to  recur  to  that  much-criticised  expression  of 
mine, — ir  the  grand  style.    This  is  v.-hat  Spinoza  had  ;  and 


Spinoza.  307 

because  he  had  it,  he  stands  out  from  the  multitude  of  phi- 
losophers, and  has  been  able  to  inspire  in  powerful  minds 
a  feeling  which  the  most  remarkable  philosophers,  without 
this  grandiose  character,  could  not  inspire.  '  There  is  no 
possible  view  of  life  but  Spinoza's,'  said  Lessing.  Goethe 
has  told  us  how  he  was  calmed  and  edified  by  him  in  his 
youth,  and  how  he  again  went  to  him  for  support  in  his 
maturity,  Heine,  the  man  (in  spite  of  his  faults)  of  truest 
genius  that  Germany  has  produced  since  Goethe, — a  man 
with  faults,  as  I  have  said,  immense  faults,  the  greatest  of 
them  being  that  he  could  reverence  so  little, — reverenced 
Spirioza.  Hegel's  influence  ran  oif  him  like  water  :  '  1 
have  seen  Hegel,' he  cries,  'seated  with  his  doleful  air 
of  a  hatching  hen  upon  his  unhappy  eggs,  and  I  have 
heard  his  dismal  clucking.  How  easily  one  can  cheat 
oneself  into  thinking  that  one  understands  everything, 
when  one  has  learnt  only  how  to  construct  dialectical 
formulas  ! '  But  of  Spinoza,  Heine  said  :  '  His  life  was 
a  copy  of  the  life  of  his  divine  kinsman,  Jesus  Christ.' — 
Essays  in  Criticism. 

TURCOT  AND  BUTLER. 

Look  at  a  contemporary  of  Butler  in  France, — a  man 
who,  more  than  any  one  else,  reminds  me  of  Butler, — ■ 
the  great  French  statesman,  the  greatest,  in  my  opinion, 
that  France  has  ever  had  ;  look  at  Turgot.  Turgot  was 
like  Butler  in  his  mental  energy,  in  his  deep  moral  and 

X  2 


3o8  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

intellectual  ardour,  his  strenuousness,  '  Every  science, 
every  language,  every  literature,  every  business,'  says 
Michelet,  '  interested  Turgot.'  But  that  in  which  Turgot 
most  resembled  Butler  was  what  Michelet  calls  \\\?,firodte, 
— what  I  should  rather  call  his  sceva  indignatio.  Like 
Butler,  Turgot  was  filled  with  an  astonished,  awful,  op- 
pressive sense  of  'the  immoral  thoughtlessness  '  cf  men  ; 
of  the  heedless,  hazardous  way  in  which  they  deal  with 
things  of  the  greatest  moment  to  them  ;  of  the  immense, 
incalculable  misery  which  is  due  to  this  cause.  '  The 
greatest  evils  in  life,'  Turgot  held,  just  as  Butler  did, 
'  have  had  their  rise  from  somewhat  which  was  thought 
of  too  little  importance  to  be  attended  to.'  And  for  these 
serious  natures  religion,  one  would  think,  is  the  line  of 
labour  which  would  naturally  first  suggest  itself  And 
Turgot  was  destined  for  the  Church  ;  he  prepared  to 
take  orders,  like  Butler.  But  in  1752,  when  Butler  lay 
dying  at  Bath,  Turgot, — the  true  spiritual  yoke-fellow  of 
Butler,  with  Butler's  sacred  horror  at  men's  frivolity,  with 
Butler's  sacred  ardour  for  rescuing  them  from  the  conse- 
quences of  it,— Turgot,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  could 
stand  religion,  as  in  France  religion  then  presented  itself 
to  him,  no  longer,  '•  11  jeta  ce  masque,''  says  Michelet, 
adopting  an  expression  of  Turgot's  own  ;  '  he  flung  away 
that  mask.'  He  took  to  the  work  of  civil  government  ; 
in  what  spirit  we  many  of  us  know,  and  whoever  of  us 
does  not  know  should  make   it   his  business  to  learn. 


Ttirgot  and  BiUlcr.  309 

Nine  years  afterwards  began  his  glorious  administration 
as  Intendant  of  the  Limousin,  in  which  for  thirteen  years 
he  showed  what  manner  of  spirit  he  was  of.  When,  in 
1774,  he  became  Minister  and  Controller-General,  he 
showed  the  same  thing  on  a  more  conspicuous  stage. 
'  Whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  nobly 
serious,  whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report,' — that  is  the 
history  of  Turgot's  administration  !  He  was  a  Joseph 
Butler  in  government.  True,  his  work,  though  done  as 
secular  administration,  has  in  fact  and  reality  a  religious 
character  ;  all  work  like  his  has  a  religious  character. 
But  the  point  to  seize  is  here  :  that  in  our  country,  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a  man  like  Butler  is  still 
possible  in  religion  ;  in  France  he  is  only  possible  in 
civil  government.  And  that  is  what  I  call  a  true  '  decay 
of  religion,  the  influence  of  it  more  and  more  wearing 
out  of  the  minds  of  men.'  The  very  existence  and  work 
of  Butler  proves,  in  spite  of  his  own  desponding  words, 
that  matters  had  not  in  his  time  gone  so  far  as  this  in 
England. — Last  Essays. 

BUTLER'S  PSYCHOLOGY. 

What  he  calls  our  instincts  and  principles  of  action, 
which  are  in  truth  the  most  obscure,  changing,  inter- 
dependent of  phenomena,  Butler  takes  as  if  they  were 
things  as   separate,   fixed,   and  palpable  as   the  bodily 


3IO  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

organs  which  the  dissector  has  on  his  table  before  liim. 
He  takes  them  as  if,  just  as  he  now  finds  them,  there 
they  had  ahvays  been,  and  there  they  must  ahvays  be  ; 
as  if  benevolence  had  always  gone  on  secreting  love  of 
our  neighbour,  and  compassion  a  desire  to  relieve  misery, 
and  conscience  right  verdicts,  just  as  the  liver  secretes 
bile.  Butler's  error  is  that  of  the  early  chemists,  who 
imagined  things  to  be  elements  which  were  not,  but  were 
capable  of  being  resolved  and  decomposed  much  farther. 
And  a  man  who  is  thrown  fairly  upon  himself,  and  will 
have  the  naked  truth,  must  feel  that  it  is  with  Butler's 
principles  and  affections  as  it  was  with  the  elements  of 
the  early  chemists  ;— they  are  capable  of  being  resolved 
and  decomposed  much  farther,  and  solid  ground  is  not 
reached  until  they  are  thus  decomposed.  '  There  is  this 
principle  of  reflexion  or  conscience  in  mankind.' — '  True,' 
the  student  may  answer  ;  '  but  what  and  whence  is  it  ? 
It  had  a  genesis  of  some  kind,  and  your  account  of  its 
genesis  is  fantastic.  What  is  its  natural  genesis,  and 
what  the  natural  genesis  of  your  benevolence,  compassion, 
resentment,  and  all  the  rest  of  them  ?  Till  I  know  this, 
I  do  not  know  where  I  am  in  talking  about  them.' — But 
into  this  vast,  dimly  lighted,  primordial  region  of  the 
natural  genesis  of  man's  affections  and  principles,  Butler 
never  enters. 

Yet  in  this  laboratory  arose   those  wonderful   com- 
pounds with  which  Butler  deals,  and  the  source  of  his 


Butler  s  Psychology.  3 1  i 

ruling  faculty  of  conscience  is  to  be  traced  back  thither. — 
Last  Essays. 

BUTLER'S  ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY. 

I  DO  not  remember  to  have  anywhere  seen  pointed  out 
the  precise  break-down,  which  a  cool  inquirer  must,  it 
seems  to  me,  be  conscious  of  in  Butler's  argument  from 
analogy.  The  argument  is  of  this  kind  : — The  reality  of 
the  laws  of  moral  government  of  this  world,  says  Butler, 
implies,  by  analogy,  a  like  reality  of  laws  of  moral 
government  in  the  second  world,  where  we  shall  be  here- 
after. -  The  analogy  is,  in  truth,  used  to  prove  not  only 
the  probable  continuance  of  the  laws  of  moral  govern- 
ment, but  also  the  probable  existence  of  that  future  world 
in  which  they  will  be  manifested.  It  does  only  prove  the 
probable  continuance  of  the  laws  of  moral  government 
in  the  future  world,  supposing  that  second  world  to  exist. 
But  for  that  existence  it  supplies  no  probability  whatever. 
For  it  is  not  the  laws  of  moral  government  which  give  us 
proof  of  this  present  world  in  which  they  are  manifested  ; 
it  is  the  experience  that  this  present  world  actually  exists, 
and  is  a  place  in  which  these  laws  are  manifested.  Show 
us,  we  may  say  to  Butler,  that  a  like  place  presents  itself 
over  again  after  we  are  dead,  and  we  will  allow  that  by 
analogy  the  same  moral  laws  will  probably  continue  to 
govern  it.  But  this  is  all  which  analogy  can  prove  in 
the   matter.     The   positive   existence   of  the   world   to 


3 1 2  Philosophy  aitd  Religion. 

come  must  be  proved,  like  the  positive  existence  of 
the  present  world,  by  experience.  And  of  this  experience 
Butler's  argument  furnishes,  and  can  furnish,  net  one 
tittle. 

There  may  be  other  reasons  for  believing  in  a  second 
life  beyond  the  grave.  Christians  in  general  consider 
that  they  get  such  grounds  from  revelation.  And  people 
who  come  to  Butler  with  the  belief  already  established, 
are  not  likely  to  ask  themselves  very  closely  what  Butler's 
analogical  reasoning  on  its  behalf  is  good  for.  The 
reasoning  is  exercised  in  support  of  a  thesis  which  does 
not  require  to  be  made  out  for  them.  But  whoever 
comes  to  Butler  in  a  state  of  genuine  uncertainty,  and 
has  to  lean  with  his  whole  weight  on  Butler's  reasonings 
for  support,  will  soon  discover  their  fundamental  weak- 
ness. The  weakness  goes  through  the  '  Analogy '  from 
beginning  to  end.     For  example  : — 

The  states  of  life  in  which  we  ourselves  existed  formerly, 
in  the  womb  and  in  our  infancy,  are  almost  as  different  from 
our  present  in  mature  age  as  it  is  possible  to  conceive  any 
two  states  or  degrees  of  Hfe  can  be.  Therefore,  that  we  are 
to  exist  hereafter  in  a  state  as  different  (suppose)  from  our 
present  as  this  is  from  the  former,  is  but  according  to  the 
analogy  of  nature. 

There  it  is  in  the  first  chapter  !  But  we  have  experience 
of  the  several  different  states  succeeding  one  another  in 
man's  present  life  ;  that  is  what  makes  us  believe  in 
their  succeeding  one  another  here.      We  have  no  ex- 


Butler's  Argtmtent from  Analogy.    313 

perience  of  a  further  different  state  beyond  the  limits  of 
this  life.  If  we  had,  we  might  freely  admit  that  analogy 
renders  it  probable  that  that  state  may  be  as  unlike  to 
our  actual  state,  as  our  actual  state  is  to  our  state  in  the 
womb  or  in  infancy.  But  that  there  is  the  further 
different  state  must  first,  for  the  argument  from  analogy 
V    to  take  effect,  be  proved  from  experience.  — Last  Essays. 

BUTLERS  APPEAL    TO   OUR  LGNOKANCE. 

Butler  appeals,  and  no  man  ever  appealed  more  mapres- 
sively  than  he,  to  the  sense  we  must  have  of  our  ignor 
ance.  Difficulties  alleged  against  the  truth  of  religion, 
he  says,  '  are  so  apparently  and  wholly  founded  in  our 
ignorance,  that  it  is  wonderful  they  should  be  insisted 
upon  by  any  but  such  as  are  weak  enough  to  think  they 
are  acquainted  with  the  whole  system  of  things.'  And 
he  speaks  of  '  that  infinitely  absurd  supposition  that  we 
know  the  whole  of  the  case.'  But  does  not  the  common 
account  of  God  by  theologians,  does  not  Butler's  own 
assertion  of  the  all-foreseeing,  quasi-human  designer, 
with  a  will  and  a  character,  go  upon  the  supposition  that 
we  know,  at  any  rate,  a  very  great  deal,  and  more  than 
we  actually  do  know,  of  the  case  ?  And  are  not  the 
difficulties  alleged  created  by  that  supposition  ?  And  is 
not  the  appeal  to  our  ignorance  in  fact  an  appeal  to  us, 
having  taken  a  great  deal  for  granted,  to  take  something 
more  for  granted  : — namely,  that  what  we  at  first  took 


314  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

for  granted  has  a  satisfactory  solution  somewhere  beyond 
the  reach  of  our  knowledge  ? — Last  Essays. 

RESULT  OF  THE    'ANALOGY: 

The  wonderful  thing  about  the  '  Analogy '  is  the  poor  in- 
significant result,  even  in  Butler's  own  judgment, — the 
puny  total  outcome, — of  all  this  accumulated  evidence 
from  analog}',  metaphysics,  and  Bible-history.  It  is, 
after  all,  only  '  evidence  which  keeps  the  mind  in  doubt, 
perhaps  in  perplexity.'  The  utmost  it  is  calculated  to 
beget  is,  '  a  serious  doubting  apprehension  that  it  may  be 
true.'  However,  'in  the  daily  course  of  life,' says  Butler, 
'  our  nature  and  condition  necessarily  require  us  to  act 
upon  evidence  much  lower  than  what  is  commonly  called 
probable.'  In  a  matter,  then,  of  such  immense  practical 
importance  as  religion,  where  the  bad  consequences  of  a 
mistake  may  be  so  incalculable,  we  ought,  he  says,  un- 
hesitatingly to  act  upon  imperfect  evidence.  '  It  ought, 
in  all  reason,  considering  its  infinite  importance,  to 
have  nearly  the  same  influence  upon  practice,  as  if  it 
were  thoroughly  believed  ! '  And  such  is,  really,  the 
upshot  of  the  'Analogy.'  Such  is,  when  all  is  done,  the 
'  happy  alliance '  achieved  by  it  '  between  faith  and 
philosophy.' 

But  we  do  not,  in  the  daily  course  of  life,  act  upon 
evidence  which  we  ourselves  conceive  to  be  much  lower 
than  what  is  commonly  called  probable.     If  I  am  going 


Result  of  the  '  Analogy.'  315 


to  take  a  walk  out  of  Edinburgh,  and  thought  of  choosing 
the  Portobello  road,  and  a  travelling  menagerie  is  taking 
the  same  road,  it  is  certainly  possible  that  a  tiger  may 
escape  from  the  menagerie  and  devour  me  if  I  take  that 
road  ;  but  the  evidence  that  he  will  is  certainly,  also, 
much  lower  than  what  is  commonly  called  probable. 
Well,  I  do  not,  on  that  low  degi"ee  of  evidence,  avoid  the 
Portobello  road  and  take  another.  But  the  duty  of 
acting  on  such  a  sort  of  evidence  is  really  made  by  Butler 
the  motive  for  a  man's  following  the  road  of  religion,  — 
the  way  of  peace. 

How  utterly  unlike  is  this  motive  to  the  motive 
always  supposed  in  the  book  itself  of  our  religion,  in  the 
Bible  !  After  reading  the  '  Analogy,'  one  goes  instinctively 
to  bathe  one's  spirit  in  the  Bible  again,  to  be  refreshed 
by  its  boundless  certitude  and  exhilaration.  '  The  Eter- 
nal is  the  strength  of  my  life  ! '  '  the  foundation  of  God 
standeth  sure  !  ' — that  is  the  constant  tone  of  religion  in 
the  Bible.  '  If  I  tell  you  the  truth,  why  do  ye  not  believe 
me  ? — the  evident  truth,  that  whoever  comes  to  me  has 
life  ;  and  evident,  because  whoever  does  come,  gets  it  ! ' 
That  is  the  evidence  to  constrain  our  practice  which  is 
offered  by  Christianity. — Last  Essays. 

THE   'ANALOGY'    TO-DAY. 

Let  us,  then,  confess  it  to  ourselves  plainly.  The  '  Ana- 
logy,' the  great  work  on  which  such  immense  praise  has 


3  1 6  PJiilosophy  and  Religion. 


o 


been  lavished,  is,  for  all  real  intents  and  purposes  now,  a 
failure  ;  it  does  not  serve.  It  seemed  once  to  have  a 
spell  and  a  power  ;  but  the  Zeit-Geist  breathes  upon  it, 
and  we  rub  our  eyes,  and  it  has  the  spell  and  the  power 
no  longer.  It  has  the  effect  upon  me,  as  I  contem- 
plate it,  of  a  stately  and  severe  fortress,  with  thick  and 
high  walls,  built  of  old  to  control  the  kingdom  of  evil  ; — 
but  the  gates  are  open,  and  the  guards  gone. — Last  Essays. 

GREATNESS   OF  BUTLER. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  his  gloom,  in  spite  of  the  failure  of 
his  '  Analogy '  to  serve  our  needs,  Butler  remains  a  person- 
age of  real  grandeur  for  us.  This  pathetic  figure,  with 
its  earnestness,  its  strenuous  rectitude,  its  firm  faith  both 
in  religion  and  in  reason,  does  in  some  measure  help  us, 
does  point  the  way  for  us.  Butler's  profound  sense,  that 
inattention  to  religion  implies  '  a  dissolute  immoral 
temper  of  mind,'  engraves  itself  upon  his  readers'  thoughts 
also,  and  comes  to  govern  them.  His  conviction,  that 
religion  and  Christianity  do  somehow  'in  themselves 
entirely  fall  in  with  our  natural  sense  of  things,'  that 
they  are  true,  and  that  their  truth,  moreover,  is  somehow 
to  be  established  and  justified  on  plain  grounds  of  reason, — • 
this  wholesome  and  invaluable  conviction,  also,  gains  upon 
us  as  we  read  him.  The  ordinary  religionists  of  Butler's 
day  might  well  be  startled,  as  they  were,  by  this  bishop 
with  the  strange,  novel,  and  unhallowed  notion,  full  of 


Greatness  of  Butler.  3 1 7 


dangerous  consequence,  of  '  referring  mankind  to  a  law 
of  nature  or  virtue,  written  on  their  hearts.'  The  pamph- 
leteer, who  accused  Butler  of  dying  a  Papist,  declares 
plainly  that  he  for  his  part  '  has  no  better  opinion  of 
the  certainty,  clearness,  uniformity,  universality,  &c.,  of 
this  law,  than  he  has  of  the  importance  of  external  re- 
ligion.' But  Butler  ^/(/  believe  in  the  certainty  of  this 
law.  It  was  the  real  foundation  of  things  for  him.  With 
awful  reverence,  he  saluted,  and  he  set  himself  to  study 
and  to  follow,  this  *  course  of  life  marked  out  for  man  by 
nature,  whatever  that  nature  be. '  And  he  was  for  perfect 
fairness  of  mind  in  considering  the  evidence  for  this  law, 
or  for  anything  else.  '  It  is  fit  things  be  stated  and  con- 
sidered as  they  really  are.'  '  Things  are  what  they  are, 
and  the  consequences  of  them  will  be  what  they  will  be  ; 
why,  then,  should  we  desire  to  be  deceived  ? '  And  he 
believed  in  reason.  '  I  express  myself  with  caution,  lest 
I  should  be  mistaken  to  vilify  reason,  which  is  indeed 
the  only  faculty  we  have  wherewith  to  judge  concerning 
anything,  even  religion  itself  Such  was  Butler's  fidelity 
to  that  sacred  light  to  which  religion  makes  too  many 
people  false, — reason. — Last  Essays. 

BISHOP   WILSON'S  '  MAXIMS: 

Bishop  Wilson's  '  Maxims  of  Piety  and  Christianity ' 
deserve  to  be  circulated  as  a  religious  book,  not  only  by 
comparison  with  the  cartloads  of  rubbish  circulated  at 


'» 


iS  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


present  under  this  sort  of  designation,  but  for  their  own 
sake,  and  even  by  comparison  with  the  other  works  of  the 
same  author.  Over  the  far  better  known  '  Sacra  Privata ' 
they  have  this  advantage,  that  they  were  prepared  by  him 
for  his  own  private  use,  while  the  '  Sacra  Privata  '  were 
prepared  by  him  for  the  use  of  the  public.  The  '  Maxims  ' 
were  never  meant  to  be  printed,  and  have  on  that  ac- 
count,— like  a  work  of,  doubtless,  far  deeper  emotion  and 
power,  the  '  Meditations  '  of  Marcus  Aurelius,— something 
peculiarly  sincere  and  first-hand  about  them.  Some  of 
the  best  things  from  the  '  Maxims  '  have  passed  into  the 
'  Sacra  Privata.'  Still,  in  the  '  Maxims,'  we  have  them  as 
they  first  arose  ;  and  whereas,  too,  in  the  '  Sacra  Privata  ' 
the  writer  speaks  very  often  as  one  of  the  clergj^,  and  as 
addressing  the  clerg)',  in  the  '  Maxims '  he  almost  always 
speaks  only  as  a  man.  I  am  not  saying  a  word 
against  the  '  Sacra  Privata,'  for  which  I  have  the  highest 
respect ;  only  the  '  Maxims '  seem  to  me  a  better  and 
more  edifying  book  still.  They  should  be  read,  as 
Joubert  says  Nicole  should  be  read,  with  a  direct  aim 
at  practice.  The  reader  will  leave  on  one  side  things 
which,  from  the  change  of  time  and  from  the  changed 
point  of  view  which  the  change  of  time  inevitably 
brings  with  it,  no  longer  suit  him  ;  enough  will  remain 
to  serve  as  a  sample  of  the  very  best,  perhaps,  which 
our  nation  and  race  can  do  in  the  way  of  direct  religious 
nTiting.     M.   Michelet   makes  it  a  reproach  to  us  tl:at, 


Bishop  Wilsons  '  Maxims!  319 

in  all  the  doubts  as  to  the  real  author  of  the  '  Imitation,' 
no  one  has  ever  dreamed  of  ascribing  that  work  to  an 
Englishman.  It  is  true,  the  '  Imitation  '  could  not  well 
have  been  written  by  an  Englishman  ;  the  religious 
delicacy  and  the  profound  asceticism  of  that  admirable 
book  are  hardly  in  our  nature.  This  would  be  more 
of  a  reproach  to  us,  if  in  poetry,  which  requires,  no  less 
than  religion,  a  true  delicacy  of  spiritual  perception,  our 
race  had  not  done  great  things  ;  and  if  the  '  Imitation,' 
exquisite  as  it  is,  did  not,  as  I  have  elsewhere  remarked, 
belong  to  a  class  of  works  in  which  the  perfect  balance 
of  human  nature  is  lost,  and  which  have  therefore,  as 
spiritual  productions,  in  their  contents  something  exces- 
sive and  morbid,  in  their  form  something  not  thoroughly 
sound.  On  a  lower  range  than  the  '  Imitation,'  and 
awakening  in  our  nature  chords  less  poetical  and  delicate, 
the  '  Maxims '  of  Bishop  Wilson  are,  as  a  religious  work, 
far  more  solid.  To  the  most  sincere  ardour  and  unction, 
Bishop  Wilson  unites,  in  these  '  Maxims,'  that  downright 
honesty  and  plain  good  sense  which  our  English  race 
has  so  powerfully  applied  to  the  divine  impossibilities 
of  religion  ;  by  which  it  has  brought  religion  so  much 
into  practical  life,  and  has  so  faithfully  striven  to  do  its 
allotted  part  in  promoting  upon  earth  the  kingdom  of 
God. — Culture  and  Anarchy. 


320  PJiilosophy  and  Religion. 


THE  NEW  RELIGIOUS  RROSPECT. 

We  have  to  renounce  impossible  attempts  to  receive  the 
legendary  and  miraculous  matter  of  Scripture  as  grave 
historical  and  scientific  fact.  We  have  to  accustom  our- 
selves to  regard  henceforth  all  this  part  as  poetry  and 
legend.  In  the  Old  Testament,  as  an  immense  poetry 
growing  round  and  investing  an  immortal  truth,  '  the 
secret  of  the  Eternal :  '  Righteousness  is  salvation.  In 
the  New,  as  an  immense  poetry  growing  round  and  in- 
vesting an  immortal  truth,  the  secret  of  Jesus  :  He  that 
will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it,  he  that  will  lose  his  life  shall 
save  it. 

The  best  friends  of  mankind  are  those  who  can 
lead  it  to  feel  animation  and  hope  in  presence  of  the  re- 
ligious prospect  thus  profoundly  transformed.  The  way 
to  effect  this  is  by  bringing  men  to  see  that  our  religion, 
in  this  altered  view  of  it,  does  but  at  last  become  again 
that  religion  which  Jesus  Christ  really  endeavoured  to 
found,  and  of  which  the  truth  and*  grandeur  are  inde- 
structible. We  should  do  Christians  generally  a  great 
injustice,  if  we  thought  that  the  entire  force  of  their 
Christianity  lay  in  the  fascination  and  subjugation  of  their 
spirits  by  the  miracles  which  they  suppose  Jesus  to  have 
worked,  or  by  the  materialistic  promises  of  heaven  which 
they  suppose  him  to  have  offered.  Far  more  does  the 
vital  force  of  their  Christianity  lie  in  the  boundless  con- 


The  New  Religious  Prospect.         3  2  i 

fidence,  consolation,  and  attachment,  which  the  whole 
being  and  discourse  of  Jesus  inspire.  What  Jesus,  then, 
himself  thought  sufficient,  Chiistians  too  may  bring 
themselves  to  accept  with  good  courage  as  enough  for 
them.  What  Jesus  himself  dismissed  as  chimerical, 
Christians  too  may  bring  themselves  to  put  aside  without 
dismay. 

The  central  aim  of  Jesus  was  to  transform  for  every 
religious  soul  the  popular  Messias-ideal  of  his  time,  the 
ideal  of  happiness  and  salvation  of  the  Jewish  people  ;  to 
disengage  religion,  one  may  say,  from  the  materialism  of 
the  Book  of  Daniel.  Fifty  years  had  not  gone  by  after 
his  death,  when  the  Apocalypse  replunged  religion  in  this 
materialism  ;  where,  indeed,  it  was  from  the  first  mani  - 
fest  that  replunged  by  the  followers  of  Jesus  religion 
must  be.  It  ivas  replunged  there,  but  with  an  addition 
of  inestimable  value  and  of  incalculable  working, — the 
figure  and  influence  of  Jesus.  Slowly  this  influence 
emerges,  transforms  the  turbid  elements  amid  which  it 
was  thrown,  brings  back  the  imperishable  ideal  of  its 
author.  To  the  mind  of  Jesus,  his  own  resurrection  after 
a  short  sojourn  in  the  grave  was  the  victory  of  his  cause 
after  his  death,  and  at  the  price  of  his  death.  His  dis- 
ciples materialised  his  resurrection  ;  and  their  version  of 
the  matter  falls  day  by  day  to  ruin.  But  no  ruin  or  con- 
tradiction befalls  the  version  of  Jesus  himself.  He  has 
risen,  his  cause  has  conquered  ;  the  course  of  events  con- 

Y 


'•2  2  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


o 


tinually  attests  his  resurrection  and  victory.  The  mani- 
fest unsoundness  of  popular  Christianity  inclines  at 
present  many  persons  to  throw  doubts  on  the  truth  and 
permanence  of  Christianity  in  general.  Creeds  are  dis- 
credited, religion  is  proclaimed  to  be  in  danger,  the 
pious  quake,  the  world  laughs.  Nevertheless,  the  prince 
of  this  world  is  Judged  ;  '  the  victory  of  Jesus  is  won 
and  sure.  Conscience  and  self-renouncement,  the  method 
and  the  secret  of  Jesus,  are  set  up  as  a  leaven  in  the 
world,  nevermore  to  cease  working  there  until  the  world 
is  leavened  That  this  is  so,  that  the  resurrection  and  re- 
emergent  life  of  Jesus  are  in  this  sense  undeniable,  and 
that  in  this  sense  Jesus  himself  predicted  them,  may  in 
time,  surely,  encourage  Christians  to  lay  hold  on  this 
sense  as  Jesus  did. 

So,  too,  with  the  hope  of  immortality.  Our  common 
materialistic  notions  about  the  resurrection  of  the  body 
and  the  world  to  come  are,  no  doubt,  natural  and  attrac- 
tive to  ordinary  human  nature.  But  they  are  ih  direct 
conflict  with  the  new  and  loftier  conceptions  of  life  and 
death  which  Jesus  himself  strove  to  establish.  His  secret, 
He  that  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it,  he  that  will  lose  his 
life  shall  save  it,  is  of  universal  application.  It  judges, 
not  only  the  life  to  which  men  cling  here,  but,  just  as 
much,  the  life  we  love  to  promise  to  ourselves  in  the  New 
Jerusalenx     The  immortality  propounded  by  Jesus  must 

'  John,  xvi.  II. 


The  New  Religious  Prospect.  32 


be  looked  for  elsewhere  than  in  the  materialistic  aspira- 
tions of  our  popular  religion.  He  lived  in  the  eternal 
order,  and  the  eternal  order  never  dies ; — this,  if  we  may 
try  to  formulate  in  one  sentence  the  result  of  the  sayings 
of  Jesus  about  life  and  death,  is  the  sense  in  which, 
according  to  him,  we  can  rightly  conceive  of  the  righteous 
man  as  immortal,  and  aspire  to  be  immortal  ourselves. 
And  this  conception  we  shall  find  to  stand  us  in  good 
stead,  when  the  popular  materialistic  version  of  our  future 
life  fails  us.  So  that  here  again,  too,  the  version  which, 
unfamiliar  and  novel  as  it  may  now  be  to  us,  has  the 
merit  of  standing  fast  and  holding  good  while  other  ver- 
sions break  down,  is  at  the  same  time  the  version  of 
Jesus. — God  and  the  Bible. 

REPROACH   OF  A   SUBLIMATED    CHRISTIANITY. 

People  talk  scornfully  of  'a  sublimated  Christianity,' 
as  if  the  Christianity  of  Jesus  Christ  himself  had  been 
a  materialistic  fairy-tale  like  that  of  Messrs.  Moody  and 
Sankey.  On  the  contrary,  insensibly  to  lift  us  out  of  all 
this  sort  of  materialism  was  Jesus  Christ's  perpetual  en- 
deavour. The  parable  of  the  king,  who  made  a  marriage 
for  his  son,  ends  with  the  episode  of  the  guest  who  had 
not  on  a  wedding  garment,  and  was  cast  out. '  And  here, 
as  usual,  the  Tubingen  critics  detect  tendence.  They  see 
in  the  episode  a  deliberate  invention  of  the  Evangelists, 

'  Matth.,  xxii,  1-14. 
Y   2 


324  PhilosopJiy  a7id  Religion. 

a  stroke  of  Jewish  particularism,  indemnifying  itself  for 
having  had  to  relate,  that  salvation  was  preached  in  the 
highways.     We  have  disagreed  often  with  the  Tubingen 
critics,  and  we  shall  venture  finally  to  disagree  with  them 
here.     We  receive  the  episode  as  genuine  ;  but  what  did 
Jesus  mean  by  it  ?     Shall  we  not  do  well  in  thinking, 
that  he,  whose  lucidity  was  so  incomparable,  and  who  in- 
dicated so  much  which  was  to  be  seized  not  by  the  pre- 
sent but  by  the  future,  here  marked  and  meant  to  mark, 
although  but  incidentally  and  in  passing,  the  profound, 
the  utter  insufficiency  of  popular  religio.n  ?     Through  the 
turbid  phase  of  popular  religion  the  religion  of  Jesus  had 
to  pass.     Good  and  bad  it  was  to  bear  along  with  it ;  the 
gross  and  ignorant  were  to  be  swept  in,  by  wholesale, 
from  the  highways  ;  the  wedding  was  to  be  furnished  with 
guests.      On  this  wise  must  Christianity  needs  develop 
itself,  and  the  necessary  law  of  its  development  was  to 
be  accepted.      Vain  to  be  too  nice  about  the  unpre- 
paredness  of  the  guests  in  general,  about  their  inevitable 
misuse  of  the  favours  which  they  were  admitted  to  enjoy  ! 
What  could   have   been   the   end  of  such   a  fastidious 
scrutiny  ?     To  turn  them  all  out  into  the  highways  again. 
But  the  king's  design  was,  that  the  wedding  should  be  fur- 
nished with  guests.     So  the  guests  shall  all  stay  and  fall 
to  ; — popular   Christianity   is  founded.      But  presently, 
almost  as  if  by  accident,  a  guest  even  more  unprepared 
and  gross  than  the  common,  a  guest  '  not  having  on  a 


Reproach  of  a  Siiblimated  C kristianity .   325 


wedding  garment,'  comes  under  the  king's  eye,  and  is 
ejected.  Only  one  is  noted  for  decisive  ejection  ;  but 
,ah  !  how  many  of  those  guests  are  as  really  unapt  to 
seize  and  to  follow  God's  designs  for  them  as  he  !  Matiy 
are  called,  few  chosen.  The  conspicuous  delinquent,  how- 
ever, is  sentenced  to  be  bound  hand  and  foot,  and  to  be 
taken  away,  and  cast  into  outer  darkness. 

In  the  severity  of  this  sentence,  Jesus  marks  how 
utterly  those  who  are  gathered  to  his  feast  may  fail  to 
know  him.  The  misapprehending  and  materialising  of 
his  religion,  the  long  and  turbid  stage  of  popular  Chris- 
tianity, was,  indeed,  inevitable.  But,  to  give  light  and 
impulsion  to  future  times,  Jesus  stamps  this  Christianity, 
even  from  the  very  moment  of  its  birth,  as,  though  in- 
evitable, not  worthy  of  its  name  ;  as  ignorant  and  tran- 
sient, and  requiring  all  who  would  be  truly  children  of 
the  kingdom  to  rise  beyond  \t.  —  God  and  the  Bible. 

THE    TRUE  JERUSALEM. 

Israel's  visible  Jerusalem  is  in  ruins  ;  and  how,  then, 
shall  men  'call  Jerusalem  the  throne  of  the  Eternal, 
and  all  the  nations  shall  be  gathered  unto  it '  ?  But  the 
true  Israel  was  Israel  the  bringer-in  and  defender  of  the 
idea  of  conduct.,  Israel  the  lifter-up  to  the  nations  of  the 
banner  of  righteousness.  The  true  Jerusalem  was  the 
city  of  this  ideal  Israel.  x\nd  this  ideal  Israel  could 
not  and  cannot  perish,  so  long  as  its  idea,  righteousness 


326  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

and  its  necessity,  does  not  perish,  but  prevails.  Now, 
that  it  does  prevail,  the  whole  course  of  the  world  proves, 
and  the  fall  of  the  actual  Israel  is  of  itself  witness.. 
Thus,  therefore,  the  ideal  Israel  for  ever  lives  and 
prospers  ;  and  its  city  is  the  city  whereto  all  nations 
and  languages,  after  endless  trials  of  everything  else 
except  conduct,  after  incessantly  attempting  to  do 
without  righteousness  and  failing,  are  slowly  but  surely 
gathered. 

To  this  Israel  are  the  promises,  and  to  this  Israel 
they  are  fulfilled.  'The  nation  and  kingdom  that  will 
not  serve  thee  shall  perish,  yea,  those  nations  shall  be 
utterly  wasted.'  It  is  so  ;  since  all  history  is  an  accu- 
mulation of  experiences  that  what  men  and  nations  fall 
by  is  want  of  conduct.  To  call  it  by  this  plain  name  is 
often  not  amiss,  for  the  thing  is  never  more  great  than 
when  it  is  looked  at  in  its  simplicity  and  reality.  Yet  the 
true  name  to  touch  the  soul  is  the  name  Israel  gave  : 
righteousness.  And  to  Israel,  as  the  representative  of  this 
imperishable  and  saving  idea  of  righteousness,  all  the 
promises  come  true,  and  the  language  of  none  of  them 
is  pitched  too  high.  The  Eternal^  Israel  says  truly,  /v  on 
my  side.  '  Fear  not,  thou  worm  Jacob,  and  thou  handful 
Israel  !  I  will  help  thee,  saith  the  Eternal.  The  Eternal 
hath  chosen  Zion  ;  men  shall  call  Jerusalem  "  the  throne 
of  the  Eternal,"  and  all  the  nations  shall  be  gathered  unto 
it.    And  he  will  destroy  in  this  mountain  the  face  of  the 


The  Trite  J erusalem.  327 

covering  cast  over  all  people,  and  the  veil  that  is  spread 
over  all  nations  ;  he  will  swallow  up  death  in  victory.'— 
Literature  and  Dogma. 

ISRAEL  AND   HIS  REVELATION. 

The  whole  history  of  the  world  to  this  day  is  in  truth 
one  continual  establishing  of  the  Old  Testament  revela- 
tion :  O  ye  that  love  the  Eternal,  see  that  ye  hate  the  thing 
that  is  evil  I  to  him  that  ordereth  his  conversation  right, 
shall  be  shown  the  salvation  of  God.  And  whether  we 
consider  this  revelation  in  respect  to  human  affairs  at 
large,  or  in  respect  to  individual  happiness,  in  either 
case  its  importance  is  so  immense,  that  the  people  to 
whom  it  was  given,  and  whose  record  is  in  the  Bible, 
deserve  fully  to  be  singled  out  as  the  Bible  singles  them. 
'  Behold,  darkness  shall  cover  the  earth,  and  gross  dark- 
ness the  nations  ;  but  the  Eternal  shall  arise  upon  thee., 
and  his  glory  shall  be  seen  upon  thee  ! '  For,  while 
other  nations  had  the  misleading  idea  that  this  or  that, 
other  than  righteousness,  is  saving,  and  it  is  not  ;  that 
this  or  that,  other  than  conduct,  brings  happiness,  and  it 
does  not ;  Israel  had  the  true  idea  that  righteousness  is 
saving,  that  to  conduct  belongs  happiness. 

Nor  let  it  be  said  that  other  nations,  too,  had  at  least 
something  of  this  idea.  They  had,  but  they  were  not 
possessed  with  it  ;  and  to  feel  it  enough  to  make  the  world 
feel  it,  it  was  necessary  to  be  possessed  with  it.     It  is  not 


-7 


2  8  Philosophy  and  Religion. 


sufficient  to  have  been  visited  by  such  an  idea  at  times, 
to  have  had  it  forced  occasionally  on  one's  mind  by  the 
teachings  of  experience.  No  ;  he  that  hath  the  bride  is 
the  bridegroom  ;  the  idea  belongs  to  him  who  has  most 
loved  it.  Common  prudence  can  say  :  Honesty  is  the  best 
policy  ;  morality  can  say  :  To  conduct  belongs  happiness. 
But  Israel  and  the  Bible  are  filled  with  religious  joy,  and 
rise  higher  and  say  :  '  Righteousness  is  salvation  ! ' — and  this 
is  what  is  inspiring.  '  I  have  stuck  unto  thy  testimonies  ! 
Eternal,  what  love  have  I  unto  thy  law  !  all  the  day  long 
is  my  study  in  it.  Thy  testimonies  have  I  claimed  as 
mine  heritage  for  ever,  and  why  ?  they  are  the  very  Joy  of 
my  heart ! '  This  is  why  the  testimonies  of  righteous- 
ness are  Israel's  heritage  for  ever,  because  they  were  the 
very  joy  of  his  heart.  Herein  Israel  stood  alone,  the 
friend  and  elect  of  the  Eternal.  '  He  showeth  his  word 
unto  Jacob,  his  statutes  and  ordinances  unto  Israel.  He 
hath  not  dealt  so  with  any  nation,  neither  have  the 
heathen  knowledge  of  his  laws.' 

Poor  Israel  !  poor  '  ancient  people  ' !  It  was  revealed 
to  thee  that  righteousness  is  salvation  ;  the  question,  what 
righteousness  is,  was  thy  stumbling-stone.  Seer  of  the 
vision  of  peace,  that  yet  could st  not  see  the  things  which 
belong  unto  thy  peace  !  with  that  blindness  thy  solitary 
pre-eminence  ended,  and  the  new  Israel,  made  up  out  of 
all  nations  and  languages,  took  thy  room.  But,  thy  visita- 
tion complete,  thy  temple  in  ruins,  thy  reign  over,  thine 


Israel  and  His  Revelation.  329 

ofifice  done,  thy  children  dispersed,  thy  teeth  drawn,  thy 
shekels  of  silver  and  gold  plundered,  did  there  yet  stay 
with  thee  any  remembrance  of  thy  primitive  intuition, 
simple  and  sublime,  of  the  Etertial  that  loveth  righteous- 
ness ?  Perhaps  not  ;  the  Talmudists  were  fully  as  well 
able  to  efface  it  as  the  Fathers.  But  if  there  did,  what 
punishment  can  have  been  to  thee  like  the  punishment  of 
watching  the  performances  of  the  Aryan  genius  upon  the 
foundation  which  thou  hadst  given  to  it  ? — to  behold  this 
terrible  and  triumphant  philosopher,  with  his  monotheistic 
idea  and  his  metaphysical  Trinity,  '  neither  confounding 
the  Persons  nor  dividing  the  Substance  '  ?  Like  the  torture 
for  a  poet  to  hear  people  laying  down  the  law  about  poetry 
who  have  not  the  sense  what  poetry  is,— a  sense  with 
which  he  was  born  !  like  the  affliction  to  a  man  of  science 
to  hear  people  talk  of  things  as  proved,  who  do  not  even 
know  what  constitutes  a  fact  !  From  the  Council  of 
Nicsea  down  to  Convocation  and  our  two  bishops  '  doing 
something  '  for  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son,  what 
must  thou  have  had  to  suffer  ! — Literature  and  Dogma. 

GRANDEUR    OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

The  grandeur  of  Christianity,  and  the  imposing  and 
impressive  attestation  of  it,  if  one  could  but  worthily 
bring  the  thing  out,  is  here  :  in  that  immense  experi- 
mental proof  of  the  necessity  of  it,  which  the  whole  course 
of  the  world  has  steadily  accumulated,  and  indicates  to  us 


330  Philosophy  a7id  Religion. 

as  still  continuing  and  extending.  Men  will  not  admit 
assumptions,  the  popular  legend  they  call  a  fairy-tale,  the 
metaphysical  demonstrations  do  not  demonstrate,  nothing 
but  experimental  proof  will  go  down  ;  and  here  is  an 
experimental  proof  which  never  fails,  and  which  at  the 
same  time  is  infinitely  grander,  by  the  vastness  of  its 
scale,  the  scope  of  its  duration,  the  gravity  of  its  results, 
than  the  machinery  of  the  popular  fairy-tale.  Walking  on 
the  water,  multiplying  loaves,  raising  corpses,  a  heavenly 
judge  appearing  with  trumpets  in  the  clouds  while  we 
are  yet  alive, — what  is  this  compared  to  the  real  expe- 
rience offered  as  witness  to  us  by  Christianity?  It  is 
like  the  difference  between  the  grandeur  of  an  extrava- 
ganza and  the  grandeur  of  the  sea  or  the  sky, — immense 
objects  which  dwarf  us,  but  where  we  are  in  contact  with 
reality,  and  a  reality  of  which  we  can  gradually,  though 
very  slowly,  trace  the  laws. — Literature  a  fid  Dogma. 

IMMORTALITY. 

By  what  futilities  the  demonstration  of  our  immortality 
may  be  attempted,  is  to  be  seen  in  Plato's  '  Phaedo.* 
Man's  natural  desire  for  continuance,  however  little  it 
may  be  worth  as  a  scientific  proof  of  our  immortality, 
is  at  least  a  proof  a  thousand  times  stronger  than  any 
such  demonstration.  The  want  of  solidity  in  such 
argument  is  so  palpable,  that  one  scarcely  cares  to  turn 
a  steady  regard  upon  it  at  all.     And   even  of  the  com- 


Tm7nortality.  331 


mon  Christian  conception  of  immortality  the  want  of 
solidity  is,  perhaps,  most  conclusively  shown,  by  the  im- 
possibility of  so  framing  it  as  that  it  will  at  all  support  a 
steady  regard  turned  upon  it.  In  our  English  popular 
religion,  for  instance,  the  common  conception  of  a  future 
state  of  bliss  is  just  that  of  the  Vision  of  Mirza  :  '  Persons 
dressed  in  glorious  habits  with  garlands  on  their  heads, 
passing  among  the  trees,  lying  down  by  the  fountains,  or 
resting  on  beds  of  flowers,  amid  a  confused  harmony  of 
singing  birds,  falling  waters,  human  voices,  and  musical 
instruments.'  Or,  even,  with  many,  it  is  that  of  a  kind 
of  perfected  middle-class  home,  with  labour  ended,  the 
table  spread,  goodness  all  around,  the  lost  ones  restored, 
hymnody  incessant.  '■Poor  fragments  all  0/  this  low 
earth  I '  Keble  might  well  say.  That  this  conception  of 
immortality  cannot  possibly  be  true,  we  feel,  the  moment 
we  consider  it  seriously.  And  yet  who  can  devise  any 
conception  of  a  future  state  of  bliss,  which  shall  bear 
close  examination  better? 

Here,  again,  it  is  far  best  to  take  what  is  experimentally 
true,  and  nothing  else,  as  our  foundation,  and  afterwards 
to  let  hope  and  aspiration  grow,  if '  so  it  may  be,  out  of 
this.  Israel  had  said  :  '  In  the  way  of  righteousness  is 
life,  and  in  the  pathway  thereof  there  is  no  death.'  He 
had  said  :  'The  righteous  hath  hope  in  his  death.'  He 
had  cried  to  his  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness  :  '  Thou 
wilt  not  leave  my  soul  in  the  grave,  neither  wilt  thou 


332  PJiilosopJiy  and  Religion. 

suffer  thy  faithful  servant  to  see  corruption  !  thou  wilt 
show  me  the  path  of  life  ! '  And  by  a  kind  of  short  cut 
to  the  conclusion  thus  laid  down,  the  Jews  constructed 
their  fairy-tale  of  an  advent,  judgment,  and  resurrection, 
as  we  find  it  in  the  Book  of  Daniel.  Jesus,  again,  had 
said  :  '  If  a  man  keep  my  word,  he  shall  never  see  death.' 
And  by  a  kind  of  short  cut  to  the  conclusion  thus  laid 
down,  Christians  constructed  their  fairy-tale  of  the  second 
advent,  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  the  New  Jerusalem. 
But,  instead  of  fairy-tales,  let  us  begin,  at  least,  with 
certainties. 

And  a  certainty  is  the  sense  of  life,  of  being  truly  alive, 
which  accompanies  righteousness.  If  this  experimental 
sense  does  not  rise  to  be  stronger  in  us,  does  not  rise  to 
the  sense  of  being  inextinguishable,  that  is  probably  be- 
cause our  experience  of  righteousness  is  really  so  very 
small.  Here,  therefore,  we  may  well  permit  ourselves  to 
irust  Jesus,  whose  practice  and  intuition,  both  of  them, 
went,  in  these  matters,  so  far  deeper  than  ours.  At  any 
rate,  we  have  in  our  experience  this  strong  sense  of  life 
from  righteousness  to  start  with  ;  capable  of  being  deve- 
loped, apparently,  by  progress  in  righteousness  into 
something  immeasurably  stronger.  Here  is  the  true 
basis  for  all  religious  aspiration  after  immortality.  And  it 
is  an  experimental  basis  ;  and  therefore,  as  to  grandeur, 
.'l  is  again,  when  compared  with  the  popular  Aberglaube, 


Immortality.  333 


grand  with  all  the  superior  grandeur,  on  a  subject  of  the 
highest  seriousness,  of  reality  over  fantasy. 

At  present,  the  fantasy  hides  the  grandeur  of  the 
reality.  But  when  all  the  Aberglauhe  of  the  second 
advent,  with  its  signs  in  the  sky,  its  sounding  trumpets 
and  opening  graves,  is  cleared  away,  then  and  not  till 
then  will  come  out  the  profound  truth  and  grandeur  of 
words  of  Jesus  like  these  :  '  The  hour  is  coming,  and 
now  is,  when  the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son 
of  God  ;  and  they  that  hear  shall  live.^ — Literature  and 
Dogma. 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S  WOKKS, 

PUBLISHED   BY 

MACMILLAN  &  CO. 

NEW    UNIFORM  EDITION. 


Poems.     New  edition.     One  volume,         .  $2  00 

Essays  in  Criticism 2  00 

IjIteratuke  and  Dogma,        .        .        .  1  50 

God  and  the  Bible,    ....  1  50 

Culture  and  Anarchy,          .        .        .  3  00 

St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  .  .  1  75 
Isaiah  XL.,  LXVI.,  &c. :  Tlie  Great  Propliecy 

of  Israel's  Restoration,  .         .         .         .  1  50 

Last  Essays  on  Church  and  Religion  1  50 
Higher    Schools   and    Universities    in 

Germany, 2  00 

Mixed  Essays, 1  50 

Passages  from  Prose  Writings,          .  1  50 


DATE  DUE 

APR 

3  1973 

■-*  /•'  r     ^ 

id/3  0 

APR 

4  1977 

WAk  )l 

2  19//  3 

i 

GAYLCRD 

PRINT  ED  IN  U    S    A. 

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